TL;DR: Most of what matters was built long before anyone was watching. I keep finding myself in rooms where I am seeing the final moments - and current impacts - of what took years to build. 

On the Work Below the Surface

TSN 26.27 July 19, 2026

Friday, I sat three rows back and a few seats in… my moleskine open in my lap, my pen of choice in my hand. Two hundred - or maybe more - people in the room; others attending virtually via Zoom. I could clearly see whoever was at the podium. Colleagues and friends on either side of me. 

I didn't take notes to remember the speeches. I wanted evidence: the words I heard, the thoughts I had. I did not want to just trust my memory to hold what I was receiving…what I was experiencing. 

My boss spoke about serving alongside our outgoing Senior Enlisted Leader (SEL). Two years, side-by-side, through deliberate change, massive transformation, constant churn. One of his comments sat me back in my seat,

"leadership is not simply what we accomplish, but how much better people are because of us." 

Four people shared stage time that Friday: the emcee, our Commander, the outgoing Command Senior Enlisted Leader (CSEL), and our incoming CSEL. Two years leading us up to this handover… all culminating in a day of tradition. 

I took the picture of me lookin' at the quote on the wall today - Sunday - as it is a good reminder that EVERY day is a good day...for a good day.

I reviewed the four pages (!!!) of notes yesterday and noticed something: I'd mixed direct quotes with mixed opinions, magnified by a strong emotional connection to the work I do AND those I work with.

As you know, I didn't write The Sunday Note the last two weekends: 

• 5 Jul, I rode my bike a long way and then watched the World Cup.

• 12 Jul, I was with my mom…a caregiving day

Both of those days were filled with awesomeness; I was inside something instead of writing about it. Both of those weeks… were huge. I started my new job, submitted a research article for review, and spent a weekend caregiving for my mom.

Caregiving is a strange experience, one that is bitter, sweet, easy, challenging, and meaningful. I keep thinking to myself, "NO ONE prepares for this, and not EVERYONE is built for it."

Very little of it looks like an accomplishment. There are long stretches where nothing is being done. Waiting. Sitting. Moving from one room to another. 

A friend asked me how I was doing.

I told her the truth. 

"It goes in waves," I said. "Sad. Angry. Loving. Confused." 

Not stages. Waves.

Energy approaches the shore, crashes down, recedes, and gently reabsorbs.

That's how I feel when I'm with my Mama. (I keep updating our journey via the page we built for my sister, here.)

Through it all, I am practicing self-compassion, self-acceptance, and self-respect. That last one is the hardest to give. It is easy to be a strategist. It is harder to be a son. 

Something happened on Monday that I am still holding. 

My mom and I had a real conversation. An actual one. About a major life decision she made a few years ago. She turned directly toward me, looked me in the I and asked, "Are you glad I didn't…" and then she shared a very personal decision she made, a year before the stroke.

The details do not matter. What was present was beautiful. 

It wasn't just that she asked a complete question; that she constructed a thought based on a not-too-distant memory. It was her. Her reasoning. Her sense of why she chose what she chose. All of it arriving in the room at once, in her own timing. 

I let it land. Driving back to my dad's house, I reflected on the power of the mind to work and the brain to heal. Months of repair, hours of practice. All of it coming together in a brief 4-minute conversation.

The image I have is of a rock landing on a still pond. 

The rock is finished the instant it touches the water. As it sinks, all that is left is the "transfer of power" to the water. Ripples move out across space and time, long after the thing that caused them has gone under. 

That is close to how I understand my work now. I show up. I do what I came to do. Then I leave. 

But the room is never the same afterward. People walk out of it having met someone who cared about them. Someone who paid attention to them as humans being, not human doings. 

I will almost never see what that becomes. 

For more than three years, as I researched and wrote my dissertation, my committee chair reminded me OFTEN to "trust the process." She said it when I could not yet see the result, which was the exact time I needed to hear it. 

Yesterday, as I reviewed my email, calendar, to-do lists, and journal entries in anticipation of writing this Sunday Note, I wrote something down without thinking much about it. 

• Begin the process.

• Be in the process.

• Being the process. 

Include the G. Take out the G. Move the G. The denominator is always… "Process."

Semper Supra, 

JW

PROCESS:  "a series of actions or steps taken to achieve a particular end"

PS: I'll keep publishing updates on our Mama's journey through "post-stroke" life here. If ANYone wants to chat about how we're managing to stay "just on this side" of surviving through this process, send a text and we'll chat soon... mobile # (805) 798-1362.