Dominoes

Grief sometimes feels like a snowball rolling down hill, a runaway train or one of those long fancy lines of Dominoes that once toppled, can't be stopped.

A new post from Cheryl Paige caught my attention today. Cheryl and I worked together 9 years ago when she got the phone call that a dear, dear friend had been hit by a truck and killed.

Cheryl was already a seeker, a mystic. But in the years since that pivotal, significant loss she has searched and studied and sought an even deeper understanding of what keeps us afloat when our worlds are turned inside out.

Her posting (July 7 2026) Surprised by Joy, on her Substack page, mysticrichness.substack.com was of interest to me because she writes about ‘signs’.

Like so many of us, when her beloved died, she honestly thought she would never know joy again. Partly, I believe, because again, like so many of us, she equated joy with an absence of grief; as though they are exclusive of one another. She knows now what so many people eventually come to realize. Pain and beauty can, and do, co-exist. They are not opposites and we don’t have to choose one over the other.

Cheryl is a scientist. But not your average scientist. She doesn’t fit the mold at all. Below is an excerpt from Surprised by Joy.

“In the months after Scott died, I became fascinated by something I was learning from neuroscience.

A thought creates an emotion.

An emotion releases chemistry.

That chemistry washes through the brain and every cell of the body.

I would think,

“Scott was hit by a truck and killed.”

And without realizing it...

I would pour myself another grief shot.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Not because I wanted to.

Because the love inside me was searching for someone it could no longer see.

Nine years ago, I believed grief would become the chemistry of the rest of my life.”

And it does. For so many people.

But it doesn’t have to.

Learning a way of integrating grief and joy can happen for any of us. Yes, first we have to disbelief. First we have numbing sorrow and we have to know the inability to move, to not be able to get out of bed. And then, we have to remember that life is made up of the most exquisite moments of pain and beauty doing a slow, sensual dance. Life holds all of it. We hold all of it. And when our worlds are shattered through loss, when we are sucked under by the tidal wave and can’t breathe, we have to remember how to swim; how to roll over and float until our strength returns.

We don’t like big change. When we’re happy, we’d like everything to just stay whatever way it is. But life doesn’t do that. So, we learn to surf. We learn to scuba dive and swim with a snorkel. And while we are at it, we learn to look for the shooting stars, the momentary way a shaft of sunlight highlights the color of something, the way snowflakes taste. As Cheryl so eloquently put it, we learn to belly up to the bar and ask for our loved ones to send us another shot of joy.

Because they are the ones who are teaching us. In their dying, they are who come back in subtle little ways to remind us that they are not gone. They have just transformed. And in their transformation, they will find a new way to communicate. We have to find a new way to hear them.

If this sounds like hocus pocus and woo-woo nonsense, maybe you’re just not ready.

When we assign meaning to something that once felt coincidental or serendipitous, something that instantly reminds us of the person who died, it stays with us forever. And each time we see, hear or smell whatever the thing is we’ve given new meaning to, it’s another shot of joy.

In my life it’s finding random pennies, face side up, in parking lots and on sidewalks (my dad). It’s perfectly formed random feathers along my path (my mom). It’s hearing someone say, “As you were” and it’s the smell of Old Spice (my grandfather). What are some of yours?

I’m grateful to Cheryl, for reminding us that our relationships do not die when someone we have one with, dies. Their physical presence is missing, but being in relationship with them continues.

Right now, in our lives, there are so many things to grieve. Too many reasons to feel afraid, threatened, anxious and uncertain. Every time I see that random perfectly formed feather, I feel my mom whispering to me that I’m ok. That no matter what, the ultimate outcome is good.

That’s all for now. Thanks, as always, for being here. And, as always, please share this if you know anyone who might benefit from these little reminders.

Until next time….

Love, Sean