TL;DR: Life doesn’t arrive in manageable portions. The practice I am learning is to hold all of it… at once.

“On All of It” April 26, 2026

Hiya

There is a moment I keep returning to from the past week:

Our Mama, moving through the house she and Felice live in… under her own power. Strong. Focused. Room to room like she owned the floor beneath her - like she always has.

I watched from the doorway and felt two things rise at the same time: pride so deep it had no bottom, and a sadness I could not name. For 54 years, I have known her as able, independent, faithful. Watching her be those things – if even for brief glimpses - carried the full weight of everything July 1st, 2025 took from her.

Pride…and sadness.

I did not try to separate the two feelings. I am not sure I could have.

The week had been full before I arrived at that moment. A long drive north, a finished book in my ears, California’s Central Valley scrolling past. Four phone calls on the drive back to LA on Thursday - each one a different world, a distinct set of people trying to make sense of what they were carrying.

I was not solving anything. I was listening, taking in what I had access to, letting it settle somewhere useful.

That has become a practice I don’t always have a name for.

Monday night, my dad and stepmom and I sat down to dinner at a place that asks something of you. The food arrived slowly, in courses. Our server told us the story of the restaurant - county regulations, borrowed hopes, the specific stubbornness it takes to open a room and invite strangers into it.

I listened in a way I do not always allow myself to; or, make time to.

Between 7 and 16, my mom and her husband ran a restaurant. I did not talk about that aloud at dinner. But, under it all, it was present, the way certain memories are - not interrupting, accompanying.

My sister Felice has been carrying our Mama’s recovery for months. I visited (and yes, I call it a visit; I do not want anyone to think I’m doing a lot…right now, my sister is doing it all!) so Felice could set it all down for a few hours.

While she exhaled somewhere else, the caregiver and I took Nancy to her first outpatient physical therapy appointment at Kaiser. (By the way, HUGE shout-out to Kaiser through ALL of this.)

We arrived early. She used the restroom. Met the therapist. Demonstrated enough that we left with a home practice and a plan.

Tuesday night, I cooked and our Mama, Felice, and I ate dinner together.

The next day it was just the two of us. I shared stories from my recent weeks. She didn’t talk much, but I felt she was tracking - her eyes following, something in her attending to something in me. Maybe the voice. Maybe just a face she recognized as hers.

I made us dinner. I made her bed. She was resting by nine. I got a few things done, and was down by midnight…

I left Thursday morning. An amazing week. Back in the hands and heart of our caregiver, and Felice could focus on work…

Friday, she had a massive seizure. Another setback. An ambulance. The emergency room. Tests.

The caregiver FaceTimed Felice the moment it happened, and they called on an ambulance without hesitation.

Not another stroke, the doctors said by Saturday morning. Last night, she was eating.

Still being tested. We’re waiting the way families wait - phones charged and close, trying to stay useful from a distance.

Scared. Sad. Frustrated.

And I have said this aloud, more than once this week: this is us living life.

Friday I sat with eight senior leadership teams. Each one pressing against the edge of what they could imagine their people needed, absorbing more than felt manageable, trying to lead anyway. I recognized something in the room. Not their specific weight — but the posture. The effort of staying present when the full picture hasn’t arrived yet.

What sustained me through this week wasn’t managing it.

It was not sorting the hard from the good or waiting for things to settle before allowing myself to feel them.

They don’t settle. The dinner and the seizure and the dreams and my mom walking across the room and 55 miles on a bike Saturday morning - none of it waited its turn. One thing after the next. Some things at the same time.

The practice was staying in contact with myself while it was all happening. Not above it. Not outside it.

In it - present enough to be with what was, and quiet enough to know what is not mine to carry.

All of it, at once.

That is the whole thing I am sitting with this weekend. What’s on your heart and mind?

Until next time,

JW

PS: Felice will be taking a bit of time away from work the next weeks. If you have a community you’d share our fundraiser with, please send me a text and I’ll get you info to share… mobile # (805) 798-1362

We are #BetterTogether

PPS: I’ve got some photos from the week, if ya wanna see. (Can’t upload them to this note from my phone…)