TLDR: A week in Switzerland with my dad and Gail - train tours, the Matterhorn hiding in clouds, the Glacier Express and the Bernina. Midway through a run, I learned Jodi’s mom had passed. She loved Switzerland. This note is about complexity - carrying grief and beauty at the same time, about a move to Alabama that wasn’t sacrifice but necessity, and about the quiet question I’m bringing home: where is my attention going, and is that where I want it?

TSN 26.20: On the Slowest Fast Train in the World, the “Glacier Express”

Hiya

I was at the halfway point of a run around Lake St. Moritz when Jodi’s text came through. I stopped.

A pause, in the middle of the path, other runners going by. I looked around the lake - the water was still, grey-green; the lake, ringed by snow-capped peaks. I stood there for a moment knowing that Eileen, Jodi’s mom, was gone.

Eileen loved Switzerland.

I did a 360… I don’t know exactly what I was looking for. Maybe I was trying to find somewhere to place my focus. So, I took a picture from the lake. Then I wrote Jodi a short note - told her I loved her, told her I was going to spend the time loving on my dad and Gail from here, because that’s what I could do from 5,000 miles away.

Then I finished the run.

This week held more than I expected, and I hoped for a lot.

Switzerland is genuinely stunning - the kind of beautiful that feels almost unfair. My dad and Gail, both in their mid-seventies, wanted to repeat a trip they took a decade ago… a scenic train tour of the country.

Still wanting to see the world, still making it happen.

I wanted to join them.

Watching them navigate sidewalks and train stations and cobblestone streets reminded me how much the world assumes about the people moving through it - and how much creativity and will it takes to keep showing up when those assumptions stop fitting.

We rode the Glacier Express - eight hours, 280 kilometers of Alps sliding past the windows. They call it the slowest fast train in the world. Our only job was to settle in and let it all go by, which turns out to be harder than it sounds and more restorative than I thought it could be.

In Lucerne, I stood at the Lion Monument - a massive figure carved directly into a cliff face, memorializing a moment of tremendous loss - and felt that old pull I’ve had since I was young.

Toward history.

Toward the stories of ordinary people doing the best they could, in the moment they had, in the situation they found themselves in.

I never get tired of that.

We visited Zermatt, a beautiful Swiss ski town (and yes, it snowed on us!). We took the train up to Gernergrat, and searched the horizon for the Matterhorn… it stayed hidden in the clouds.

I waited a long time. It never appeared.

Later that evening, I got a quiet dinner with my dad and Gail, the three of us at a small table in Tasch, unhurried. An amazing end, to a wonderful day.

this was a Nik week. Not only did Jodi’s mom pass away, dear family friend, Linda, also left us. And, my sister texted to share that our mom is having stable days, which is its own complicated kind of relief.

All of it arriving in the same few days, to the same open heart. All while the Alps went by outside train windows.

That’s complexity.

I don’t have a cleaner word for it. (And, I searched my journal and the thesaurus!)

//

Buying our house in Alabama in 2018 was in NO way sacrifice. I’ve been sitting with that reframe since we made that choice, and I know it was the right one to make. It was necessary.

Moving there, we did not have a clear way to get back to California from where we were - but we were building one, even when we didn’t know it.

My doctorate. Building LDC. The years of living between two time zones, two lives, two versions of what home could mean.

Waiting for options that hadn’t shown themselves yet.

So, when an option appeared, we leapt.

What did the return to Los Angeles make possible? Being present for Jimmy and Eileen’s final months, for Jodi has now lost both her parents, in ways we simply could not have been from Montgomery - that wasn’t luck or accident.

We built our way back to it.

Slowly, and not always gracefully, but we got there.

I think about that and feel something I don’t have a perfect name for.

Grateful isn’t quite big enough. Relieved isn’t right either. Maybe just… settled. Like a choice that took years to make finally knows it was the right one.

Tomorrow, I head home from Europe carrying questions.

Not anxious ones; more of quiet, intentional calibration.

1. What am I doing, even a little, that’s off course?
2. Where is my attention going, and is that where I actually want to place my focus?

It’s the instinct that got us to start our company in 2007; to relocate to Alabama in 2018; to move back to California. To take a trip to Europe with my parents.

The inner knowing that had me stop mid-run on a path around a lake in Switzerland, look out at a horizon, and write a message to my best friend.

Presence isn’t always proximity. Connection isn’t automatic just because we’re in the same place at the same time.

But connectING is always a choice - one I want to keep making. On purpose. With presence. In love.

This is a tough season. And I am grateful. For the people who have my back. For parents who want to see the world. For my wife who’s managing more than I can begin to understand. For my Space and Air Force friends who check in on me… hourly.

For the grace of spending my time where it matters most.

Momma-San, rest in peace.

JW

PS: Again, if you’re carrying heaviness, pls find someone to set it down with. If no… reach out. To me, to a counselor, to anyone.

#StrongerTogether

Oh, and send good travel vibes to my dad and Gail, they continue their European adventure without me tomorrow!