How are you, my friend?
I’m thinking of you on this Friday afternoon and wanted to reach out.
I hope you are having a good day so far. If you are, please share your joy with someone. A smile or a thoughtful “I love you” text can go a long way toward lifting someone’s day.
If you are having a hard time, practice reaching out to someone you love and trust. We all go through ups and downs, and by talking about it, it helps normalize it for everyone.
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If you’ve been following along with me lately, you know this is a season of grief for me.
There is an expression, “piggyback grief” that speaks to how sometimes one loss will open the door for other ones to march into our lives and hearts. Sometimes this means old grief re-arising, sometimes literally more losses happening.
My message to us all today (I’m talking to myself here, too!) is please don’t push the pain away. Don’t numb it or distract or bury it deep inside of you.
I mean, sure, do those things sometimes. That’s just self-preservation.
However, also give yourself the space to feel.
We are built to let the intense emotions move through us. I believe we actually need them to usher them through us, otherwise they become concrete blocks of trauma in our sweet bodies.
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One of the ways I’ve been allowing grief in my life is by talking about it.
It has been a huge (and sometimes excruciating) practice to reach out to people in my life and say, “I’m struggling.”
Sometimes I say, “I am drowning.” Sometimes I say, “I am a mess.” Sometimes, I say, “Please can you get on the phone with me or walk with me right now?”
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Last Sunday, I sent a LoveGram talking about the “unexpected love” that falls in our path, even when we are at our lowest.
I think this is a critical aspect of grief: the way that love will find us during the most unexpected moments of grief.
If you missed it, you can read it here, on the blog.
Pain and grief are a part of life, But so is love. So is love.
Look for the tiny pinpricks of love and light. I promise you, you will see them. (Or hear them. Your unexpected love might be the tiny buzz of a hummingbird, like the one who just flitted past my window as I was writing this.)
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I send you love today, my friend.
You are not alone.
We’re all in this together.
Thank you for who you are and for your beautiful spirit.
Seek celebration — even in the dark corners,
xo Sherry
💝 P.S. As I am navigating this time of grief in my life, I am also three weeks away from the launch of my next book, “The Love List of a Lifetime: Your Essential End-of-Life Planner with Practical Notes and Instructions for the Loved Ones You Leave Behind.” What a crazy turn of events that my end-of-life planner is launching as I am swimming through a few very grief-filled endings.
💝 P.P.S. I have a number of very meaningful conversations/events coming up around the book launch. Scroll down just a wee bit to read about two of them.
Present ’til the Very Last Breath is a heartfelt, interactive conversation + journaling process about staying connected through the seasons of aging, illness, dying, and death.
Together, we’ll explore how to bring presence to even the smallest moments, how to balance practical caregiving with laughter and love, and how to offer repair or reconciliation when needed.
This is a safe space to discover how love can deepen — even in life’s hardest passages.
This free workshop is being offered by Reimagine on October 25th at 10am-11:30am PDT. Register here.
Facing Our Deaths, Living with Love: A heart-opening evening of song, practicalities, and poetry with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer & Sherry Richert Belul
Let’s talk about things that matter. In a world full of noise and distraction, it can be rare that we pause for a deeper conversation about what it means to be human—about love, loss, and legacy.
When we are open to a life of endings, it helps us live more fully in the present.
How does the way we face loss shape the way we love? How does it impact the intentional legacy we leave behind? What changes when we lean into our mortality instead of turning away from it? These are the questions that invite us to savor the ordinary, speak our appreciation, and embrace the people and moments that matter most.
Join poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (All the Honey, The Unfolding) and author Sherry Richert Belul (The Love List of a Lifetime: Your Essential End-of-Life Planner with Practical Notes and Instructions for the Loved Ones You Leave Behind) for an evening of tender and honest exploration about facing our own mortality. Through poetry, song, story, and grounded writing practices, these two friends will guide you as we look openly (and gently) at death, loss, and what it means to keep choosing love—again and again.
This is not a conversation about fearful endings. It’s a conversation about how facing mortality can open us to gratitude, connection, and what matters most. Talking about death can bring us to life.
This event is being held November 4th from 4:30pm-6:30pm PDT. For more information, visit Rosemerry’s website.