This week brought me face to face with loss.

My chiropractor passed away on Monday.

He went out at 4 a.m., in bitter cold and heavy snow, to shovel the driveway. He came back inside and had a heart attack.

My heart breaks for his wife—the love of his life. For their two daughters and their partners. For the family who lost a man whose presence was steady, devoted, and deeply good.

And if I’m honest, it breaks for me too.

The Quiet People Who Hold Us

I didn’t realize, until he was gone, just how important he was to my life.

For the past couple of years, I saw him almost every week.
Before that, it was often monthly.
Before that, simply always there—stretching back over twenty-five+ years.

A steady source of strength so familiar it almost became invisible: A safe space I didn’t know I was leaning on until it disappeared.

He carried integrity in a way that feels almost rare now. Old-school techniques. An original chiropractic table. Office chairs that had seen decades of bodies come and go. He rarely spent money on himself—you could tell. But he spent himself generously.

He held so much for his wife. He spoke of her with love, care, and respect. The pride he took in his family. In his patients. In his work.

And somehow, quietly, in me.

Tomorrow I’ll drive past his office on my way to another appointment. The same road. The same building. A different world.

Facing Time

This loss has brought me face to face with time.

Not enough time.
The fear of running out.
The quiet pressure so many of us carry—that there is something we were supposed to do, become, or complete before it’s too late.

And yet… quantum physics tells us time doesn’t exist the way we think it does.

So I breathe.
And then I breathe again.

There is only this.

We began whole.
We are whole.
We are not fragments racing to complete ourselves.

You are not behind.
You are not late.
You are not competing—with anyone, or with yourself.

Grief Lives in the Body

On Friday, after a good cry, I went to the spa with my daughters. So close to his office. And I felt him—not as a ghost, but as an imprint. As the quiet echo of someone who lived with heart.

I am sad.

I am sad for his wife.
I am sad for his children.
I am sad for the world.
I am sad for myself.

I really counted on him. 
I bet he had no idea how appreciated he was by so many.

And I feel my own mortality more clearly now.

Because I want to live.

Even though I’ve had to work at loving this life.

The Ecosystem That Held Me

And still—I was held.

By the simple, grounding intimacy of staying at my daughter's home for a few days to tend to my granddaughter while her father (my son-in-law) was away for work. Feeding, rocking, laughing. Slipping into the ancient rhythm of care. Life continuing, right there in my arms.

Then both my daughters planned a full day at the winter wonderland for us at the spa!

And by women who are not bound to me by blood—but by choice.

My friends.
My clients.
My students.

I still taught my classes. I still coached my clients. And I was so reminded of the web we weave as we hold each other. 

I have women in my life who show up not because they have to, but because they want to. Women who know how to stay. In circle. In conversation. In shared breath.

Women who hold me emotionally, energetically, professionally, financially, and spiritually.

My ecosystem.

I am so blessed.

By my work—by showing up where meaning moves both ways, and remembering that what I offer also sustains me.

Even my body knew. My husband reached for me more than usual—steady, grounding, present. As if something in him sensed that I had lost a man who helped me stay anchored in my physical self.

Loss makes us porous.
And love, somehow, finds the openings.

What Remains

This loss reminds me that the people who quietly hold us—week after week, month after month, year after year—shape us more than we ever realize.

I miss him.

And I am deeply grateful that our lives crossed in this particular way, for this particular stretch of life—whatever time truly is.

May we notice who is holding us now.
May we let ourselves be held.
May we remember that life is not something to outrun.

It is something to inhabit. And I'm really going to miss him on Thursdays. :(

- Crystal