A Smile, a Curveball, and the Art of Walking Through

What are you being invited to walk through with a smile on your face and gratitude in your heart?

That was the question I brought to circle this week. And I want to be clear about what I'm not asking: I'm not asking you to cover up your pain or paste a smile over your grief. I'm asking something different — whether there's a way to move through all of life, including the hard parts, with a genuine sense of gratitude for what is, and maybe even a thread of joy or contentment running underneath.

I can hold that question because I'm living it right now. My mom is in the slow process of transitioning from this physical realm to the astral realm and beyond. I carry real sadness and grief for the loss that is coming. And I also know, in a place that goes deeper than logic, that I am not losing her.

Last week, while I was sitting with her, I quietly called in my aunts — her sisters — to be with her. Internally, mentally, I reached across. And just as I did, my mom looked at me and asked, "Did you talk to Gloria?" I was dumbfounded. I had just done exactly that. I said yes. She asked, "How? She's dead." "I can speak to both sides," I told her. She perked up — a moment of recognition, or at least that's what I told myself. A moment that said: we can still find each other, even after she goes.

What the Body Knows

Since Arizona — since the 72-hour prognosis and everything that followed — I've had relentless hiccups. They started mild, occasional, easy to dismiss. I assumed it was the travel, the less-than-healthy food, the disrupted rhythm. But they kept coming, and kept intensifying, without any of the usual accompanying symptoms.

A dear friend pointed me toward Inna Segal's The Secret Language of Your Body, which describes hiccups as relating to difficulty expressing your true feelings to the people close to you, confusion about decision-making, and conflict between a deep desire to please others and a need to rebel and do your own thing.

All three landed. Squarely.

This has been the energy building in my body since my mom's decline accelerated: the fear of judgment, the suppression of my own truth, the pull to make decisions based on other people's shoulds and wants rather than what actually supports my own well-being. I know the value of releasing those patterns. My body was telling me it was time to stop knowing it and start embodying it. That was my recalibration: to express my true feelings, to let go of the fear of judgment, to make decisions from my own center.

I share this not as a detour, but as the point. The smile and the gratitude I'm talking about are not spiritual bypasses. They are what become available when we stop bracing, stop performing, and stop abandoning ourselves — when we let the body lead us back to what's true.

Gratitude in the Middle of It

So back to the question: what am I being invited to walk through with a smile on my face and gratitude in my heart?

This. All of this.

I am invited to walk through my mom's transition knowing, deeply, that it allows her to return to her fullest self — to release not only her own pain and suffering, but that of everyone around her. Alzheimer's is a bitch of a disease. It doesn't just affect the patient; it moves through every system of support, reshaping relationships, redistributing burdens, testing love in ways no one anticipates.

My mom, wearing my hat. She had an impish look when she picked it up and put it on. I was quite proud of her for it.

And still. I have deep gratitude for everything my mom has given me in this life, and for everything she will continue to give from the other side of the veil. I have deep gratitude for my sister-in-law, my brother, and their daughter, who have carried the weight of her day-to-day care for the last two and a half years. For my other brother and his children, who held that role before them. For the way each of us brings something singular and irreplaceable to her.

Even as I've connected with my mom in the astral realm, she is happy, content, and playful. I get a little of my impishness from her. Through the sadness and grief, there is joy, appreciation, compassion, and understanding. The full spectrum, all of it at once.

Through the sadness and grief, there is joy, appreciation, compassion, and understanding. The full spectrum, all of it at once.

Plan Less. Be Present More.

Here's the invitation I extended to the circle, and I'm extending it to you now: find something in your life that you tend to get frustrated or annoyed with — something you keep wanting to be different — and see if you can find the space to accept what's actually unfolding. Or better yet, to meet it with gratitude and wonder, curious about what might emerge now that things have shifted from what you planned.

One of the places people get stuck is in the planning. When we try to schedule every moment, to "make the most" of our time, we set ourselves up to miss the unexpected gift — the detour that turns out to be the whole point. A friend shared something with me years ago that has stayed: he only plans two or three things in a day. Everything else is icing. Everything else is space for presence. It changed how he moved through the world — lighter, more open, with more room to smile.

Do you have a to-do list that defeats you before noon? Plan less. Be present more.

When life throws you a curveball — and it will, whether that's a traffic jam or late-stage Alzheimer's — the capacity to catch it with grace doesn't come from having planned for it. It comes from having practiced presence. From having stayed close to gratitude as a daily orientation, not a crisis response. From having kept some part of yourself loose, available, and willing to be surprised.

That's what my mom is teaching me right now, even as she's leaving.

Walk through it. With a smile on your face and gratitude in your heart.

With love,

Sherwood