Liz Hofreuter

I am doing something I never did before. I don’t mean these walks. I mean celebrating the completion of a challenging goal. I am not running past the finish line – panting for what’s next. I am sitting in the glory of setting a goal that only became harder as the weeks wore on and rising to that challenge for no one else than myself… and being willing to do it all with an audience. Three things made it possible. 

1. Luke Hladek as my force multiplier/producer/friend. Hands down – best partner I could ask for.
2. Grace and Ella as my north star. You are your own sentient beings – already more than I could have ever dreamed of being…brave, curious, creative and imperfect…but you still need your mom. These walks became a way of leaving some bread crumbs of wisdom for you. Maybe someday you will listen to them all.
3. Mom and Dad as my quiet muse. I did not set out for you to be part of the walks. How naive. You are part of every breath I take, yet somehow I just kept moving forward when you died. That was wrong. I am glad I finally stopped, so to speak. These walks allowed for the pause to grieve.

I thought one last walk with them might be necessary to complete this transition.

Liz: I remember wondering if I could really take a head of school job with a one-year-old and a kindergartener. And she wasn’t one. She was six months when I was making that decision. And you said to me, “Family dinners can be at the Alpha.” And it just took so much pressure off. Whoever or whatever had instilled in me what good mom, good parenting, good leadership looked like. It didn’t have to look that way. 

The pauses I take … you can almost hear me thinking… and hear so much of what remains unsaid as I come to terms with the fact that my path could be mine. It didn’t have to look like anyone else’s. My mom lived that. I never got the chance to tell her how crazy proud I am that she marched to the beat of her own drummer.

I’m glad you wore a thong on the beach, even though it embarrassed the hell out of me. I’m glad your retirement party was a dunk tank. I’m glad you traveled the world. Literally. I’m glad you went without us. I don’t have to ask, did I make you proud? I know I did. But I don’t think you know how proud you made me.

Virginia Ann Dulany was a breath of unexpected joy and unbridled empathy. Her sage wisdom guided more lives than she will ever know.

I remember telling you that I really wanted to have another baby. And you told me I had to do whatever it takes. And if that meant nine months of bed rest and somebody else taking care of Grace during that time, then that’s what it meant. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. But it was, again, that thing that opened the door and allowed me to fight through some crazy adoption process to get where I was supposed to be… the mother of Grace and Ella. I asked you once to retire  and come take care of Grace so I could go back to work, and you told me you made more money than I did. So I should take care of my baby. I’m really glad you did. 

We shared that – motherhood. I understood her so much better once I had children of my own.

And I think now, as Grace is about to graduate from college, what it must have felt like to see me choose to go back to Wheeling when you had chosen to leave. And you needed to for you. And I’m not sorry. I like the way my life twisted and turned. I like where I am…maybe there’s another reality…there’s a Midnight Library somewhere where I open a book and I make a different choice. And I go to Scarsborough, New York, right out of Princeton, instead of coming back to Wheeling, where I go to the Olympic development training camp one summer instead of coming back to hang out with my high school friends. But I didn’t make those choices. And every choice I made led me to where I am, and where I am is pretty incredible. But there had to be all these silent moments of disappointment that you never opened up to me. You just let me live my life, right up until the end. 

Mom used to say, “There are worse things than being alone.” She said it so often, I didn’t hear it and unpack it until she was gone and I learned to love being alone. And then I heard it differently when I heard Kaci Bolls sing Somebody’s Somethin’ – she sang.

… She’s always been somebody’s something.
She’s been everything but alone.
A daughter, a lover, a wife, and a mother–
She’s lived every life but her own.

I think that is what my mom was teaching me all along – go live my life. I’m doing that now more than ever. It’s awkward. I was used to living every life but my own… putting myself last. After a lifetime of doing that, I can see why my mom would nudge me  “when is it your turn?” 

I carry the very best of you. I know I do. Some of it I’m just learning now. At 58, I listen. I try to get people to center on what’s important. I’m trying to get better at writing handwritten notes… but I know there was pain, and I know you passed some of that down, too. And I know you tried not to. And I know I try not to. And for a little while, I thought my job was just to make sure my kids didn’t have the pain, but that’s not a mother’s job. 

Nor is it a father’s responsibility.

And dad,  It’s taking me 58 years to know that there’s no night in shining armor coming over that hill because you made me feel like you could fix anything. And I think you believed it. And I think all of our frustrations and battles were really about your very deep love and desire to make sure things turned out okay. Control. But you were never in control. But the truth is, you lived your life more fully than the generation before you. It’s okay that living mine more fully than you did. I know how hard you worked to be 10% better, to give me a life 10% better. And I didn’t recognize it. And we laughed at you when you made us look at where the fire exits were or when you worried that the snowstorm was going to come in April. But I do that. I walk into a room and I see all the things that could hurt my kids. But then they’re not toddlers anymore, and the room gets too big and you can’t do it. 

I just need to be there. I understand why dad took every one of my calls no matter what – just like I do now – because the moments when it is palpable that you still matter in the lives of your children are priceless. 

To know we matter. Isn’t that the gift?

Grace said to me the other day, heading out to breakfast. I’m paraphrasing. I wish everybody wasn’t going to know you. She just wanted to have breakfast with her mom. Oh, I get that. You would come home from work, and I would want you to see me, not the people who are coming to run with you or the football players from Linsly that were going to come over and watch the game with you. I just wanted you to see me. But that’s just the selfishness of the moment. It’s just the innocence of questioning for ourselves how much we matter. I knew I mattered to you dad. 

And honestly, you taught me some life lessons in so many ways, but never as well as you taught me on the golf course. Find a little tuft of grass. Put the ball on it. Make the shot just a little easier on yourself. Get your balance. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your head down. But just before that, look out at where you want to hit the ball. See your vision. Know where you’re going. Take a breath. Calm. As you pull the club into your backswing …right at the top…pause ever so slightly in a nod to the gods… 

If I could just do that in all my decisions, I think I’d make good ones. Sure, I’m going to hook it. I’m going to hit a worm burner. But I’m going to hit some good shots, too. And I will learn from the ones that don’t go where I want them to. It’s why we chase the little white ball around the course.

I actually play golf with my dad every time I tee off. I don’t know who said golf is a good walk spoiled, but from where I stand today, no walk can be spoiled… not even when playing a shitty round of golf.

Arthur Brooks says, When you’re in transition, you should walk. Best walk I could have imagined. 

And as I walk, I become again the child who never left me… a towhead girl with blonde curls reaching skyward, pumping my legs harder, higher, while a paternal hand guides the swing and a voice sings, Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon… That song lives in my bones. My father wrote it into my origin story, a melody that shaped the architecture of who I would become.

Hearing it again makes me want to dance. And isn’t that exactly what my mother is doing? 

The night she was dying, I saw her in an ephemeral dress. The skirt flowing in circles as she twirled toward a waiting partner. The image was hazy at first, dreamlike—but it sharpened into clarity. There was a line. A receiving line of those who had gone before… Troy, Howard, Darryl, Bill, Jean, Dick, Churchie, Uncle Dave, Uncle John, Uncle Charley … Pop- pop… my dad. They weren’t impatient. Time had no home in this dimension. They were throwing her a welcoming. I walked her as far as I could go …  and that peaceful image is where I go every time I hear…

I’ve been dreaming of friendly faces
I’ve got so much time to kill
Just imagine people laughing
I know some day we will
And even if it’s far away
Get me through another day

Cover me in sunshine

These walks have been my sunshine. They have taught me a few lessons I wish I had learned while my parents were alive: 

• Listen. 
• Be present. 
• Show up … especially when it’s inconvenient. 
• At some point you might be broken open … that discomfort is where growth begins. 

So this is a celebration of the series I set out to do, but it’s not really an ending. It’s a thank you……to everyone who listened…. to Luke… to my girls … to my mom and my dad… and mostly to everyone who walked with me. Thank you for your trust… your openness… your unconditional love…for holding up a mirror for me while I thought I was holding up a mirror for you… for matching my steps and keeping the cadence until I could more clearly see my path. I love you all.

It is also an invitation. An urging. Walk with someone. Ask them about their life. Listen like you’ve never heard anything more important. Tell them what they mean to you… while you still can. Let them see you—really see you—in all your imperfect, glorious humanity. 

Liz: I don’t know what comes of all this. But if I look back at all the times in my life when I didn’t know what comes of all this, it all worked out pretty damn well.

As Jon Hume sings, “Don’t forget where you came from…Don’t forget what you′re made of…” Don’t forget to sing when you win

Thanks for walking with me.

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There are people who walk into your life like sunlight streaming through a window. They don’t arrive with fanfare. I don’t even remember the moment I met Jeff Greenfield. He simply showed up in my life during Kay Merseth’s class at HGSE —Harvard Graduate School of Education –  radiating this inexplicable warmth that makes everything feel lighter, brighter, more possible. 

This is my very last walk of this series. Jeff is perfect for this moment. Some people are meant to bookend your story— Barb was there at the beginning to nudge me on and Jeff is there at the end to send me off to my next adventure. Together they remind me of all I have learned and all I have to give.

Jeff and I are teachers, school leaders, and occasional goofballs. We both started our educational career in middle school. Do you know middle schoolers? As Wendy Mogel said, “They are the best people on the planet. It is the period of their greatest anguish and ecstasy of life.” And they are good at it. They’re old enough to understand complexity but young enough to believe in magic. That’s this friend. When I’m with Jeff, it’s magic.

Jeff: I mean, you can play any role you want with this on. It’s great. Like secret service. Liberty moving, liberty moving. Do you follow?

Liz: Except their mics are on their wrist. Don’t you always see them?

Jeff: Yeah, they talk into their hand.

Liz: We could do that. You could be the first person who puts his mic on his wrist and has to- 

Jeff: ..walk around like this for that for a while? Na

Liz: So this is it.

Jeff: Oh, are you getting sentimental?

Liz: I am a little sentimental. And I’ve been thinking about the fact that if I make a big deal that I chose you to be the last walk, does that offend 49 other people?

Jeff: I’ll keep it a secret.

Liz: Yeah, except I just said it on the mic.

Jeff: Well, only Luke will know.

Liz: I wanted to walk with you because every time I see you, you make my heart sing. I feel like a kid all over again when I see you. And I wouldn’t do all those silly things with just everybody.

Jeff: Is that because I just pull you down to my level of emotional maturity?

That of a middle schooler, no doubt.

Jeff: I didn’t have the right certification and no teaching experience, it was a bit of a risk for the school to hire me on as a middle school teacher. And they were worried about my expertise in subject area, which, frankly, so was I. I was like, now, what is that slide rule thing again?

Liz: You were hired as a math teacher?

Jeff: I was, which is a little frightening. But the thing that I always just love so much about that age is that they really become what you expect of them. So if you talk to them like the young adults they want to be, then you really get the best out of them. And if you don’t think they’re capable of much beyond what they are in that moment, then that’s what you’re going to get. 

There is so much wisdom there. Every parent and teacher of a middle schooler should have to repeat those words as a mantra…daily. They really become what you expect of them.

Jeff: What I didn’t anticipate was how much education parents needed, which I should have. I mean, I knew I’d be working a lot with adults in my role as a middle school director, which I wanted to do. I love the idea of working with both kids and people who love kids. I didn’t want to teach the same thing all day, just to kids, but got really fired up about the idea of a teaming model and everybody pulling in the same direction, even if they have different ideas about what’s best for a child. But it’s parents … It’s not so much that they’re hard. I mean, everything is hard from time to time. The best stuff is always the hard stuff at some level. But it was more a matter of them just… It’s just funny, even the smartest, most common sense people, when it’s their kid involved, they just can’t… I mean, I’m sure the same is true for me. You just can’t see it the way sometimes your kid really needs you to. So setting up education for families and trying to stay ahead of the thing that they were going to fear next. 

You see… I’m tempted to just let this entire walk be nothing but the raw audio from our walk. It is a natural conversation between two people who fit that category of “people who love kids.” But I have to highlight some of the good stuff. Reiterate it for emphasis. In school leadership, parents can be hard. This is true because they love their children so fiercely …and because they are afraid. Love and fear are not opposites—they’re partners. Jeff says it was his job to “stay ahead of the thing that they were going to fear next.” What brilliance in that simple statement. Instead of waiting for parents to bring their fears to him wrapped in anger or accusation, he anticipated their worries and addressed them proactively. He understood that fear from a parent’s perspective. As parents, we send our most precious cargo into these buildings every day and trust strangers to care for them, teach them, challenge them. We drop them off at car line with backpacks that are too heavy and hearts that are too tender, and we drive away hoping—no praying—that today will be a good day. That someone will notice if they’re sad. That someone will celebrate when they finally understand fractions. Just love them.

When love meets love, fear has nowhere to weaponize.  Rose Helm shared the same idea.

Rose Helm: …when we see parents who are manifesting crazy…I like to say it’s actually rooted in fear…which is actually rooted in love. And if we can meet them in the love place… We can bring the crazy level down.

It is as if they were all talking to one another. Jeff agrees, “Everything about good education is personal. You just can’t have a great school without meaningful and strong relationships all around, starting with the adults in the building.”

Jeff: The blessing and the curse of being a school person. That the best learning happens in relationships. The deep joy comes from… You have to be there. COVID and all this virtual learning has taught us so much because especially for younger kids, it’s so dependent on… You got to have 20 kids or 15, whatever, in a room with a caring adult. That also means that the head of school or the division head has to have their ass in building, too. 

I’d like to do the math of the collective wisdom of the school leaders with whom I have walked. I know there is well over 100 years of experience of creating positive cultures with meaningful relationships… the joy of being there… being present for all of the best people on the planet. 

Jeff: It’s just the fact that you accumulate so much knowledge, whether you mean to or not, when you’re at something a long time and you make a lot of mistakes and you learn from them. And I’d love to be able to put that to use in some way. While I’m thinking about ways to make best use of what I’ve learned to help others or help a school community, I also have learned how important it is to keep learning. After I retired, I started woodworking. It was just liberating to not have to be right, to not have to do things perfectly. And I mean, I realized, of course, that’s the pressure I put on myself. But it just struck me when I was really starting from scratch on something that has a steep learning curve.

Liz: You really do have to humble yourself to learn something new.

Jeff: Yeah, especially something like that. I just hadn’t… So often you have skills that transfer from something else that you’ve done. Oh, my God. Nothing. Transferred. You pick up these tools, and I don’t even know what it is. So you have to be willing to start at the beginning… the excitement of learning something that’s brand new.

And I’m realizing, too, these are not linear things. These are not either ors. You could come there to be the best school administrator you could be, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t pick up these interests and these values along the way. …Life is just so much more nuanced than we, and I especially, tend to give it credit for.

Maybe the boards of our schools should require us as school leaders to learn – not through a professional development budget that sends us to conferences – to humble ourselves to learn something brand new. Embody the child who slides into a seat in a classroom every day. Develop that empathy muscle – that authenticity of making mistakes without wearing a mask of perfection. When you have worn the armor of “getting it right” for so long, it is hard to take it off. We may need to practice more often. I have mentioned before that we spend a lot of time on the launch of emerging leaders and zero time on the landing. What if transitions during leadership succession were more about the people than the position? What if we cared about the wellbeing of the outgoing leader as much as we care about the support of the new hire?

Jeff: My first two years, after I left USN, I felt like I was… It just… I mean, I would wake up constantly in the middle of some dream that was exactly what my job used to be. And that still happens today, but not with the same frequency.

Liz: What are you doing? Crossing guard or fighting with a teacher?

Jeff: It wasn’t always bad.

Liz: Oh, some of the dreams are good.

Jeff: Yeah, but they’re still so… Just my entire being was so entrenched in that role, in that identity. I’d think in the middle of the day when I was awake, would I be in a seventh grade… It’s Thursday at a quarter of two. I’d probably in a seventh grade team meeting right now. And I know that’s pretty typical. But after 20 months, and I’m still thinking that way, I thought, oh, my gosh, is this a forever thing? But surely there’s more to me than that. How do I clear my head? 

Liz: So how did you clear your head?

Jeff: I just lived a little further into it, I guess. I mean, it still happens, and it probably always will, but I don’t feel controlled by it like I did before, where I’d be. I just thought, my God, if I’m going to think about this so much, why don’t I at least go into school and make some money? It’s going to be on my mind anyway. And now that I’m getting a little more distance, I’m just thinking… the big things on my calendar in the coming weeks have nothing to do with Parents Night and Alumni events and whatever. It was about something fun for me or a trip with Carolyn or seeing the kids… So that’s refreshing.

Liz: You and Carolyn really hit a nerve when you said, ‘Why do we have to wait until we’re older to do the things we want to do?’ 

Jeff: I’m going to be 60 in a few months. And these are supposed to be the go-go years before you get to the slow-go years. And then eventually, the no-go years. But that shit can… I mean, you don’t know.

Liz: That shit can change on a dime.

Jeff: It can.

So many walks have included the line, “Life is fragile.” We do not know what tomorrow holds. So what are you going to do with today? With this moment?

Liz: I think we should turn around. 

Jeff: Is this not…

Liz: You don’t think we can go that way? You think there’s a path over there?

Jeff: I don’t know. Does it look like there’s a sidewalk?

Liz: A sidewalk. hmph

Jeff: Does it look like there’s a path over there?

Liz: Maybe

Jeff: Because if we can stay along there, I have a feeling that’s where we want to be, right?

Liz: Yeah. Oh, wow. Look, and then you get yourself lost, and then you find this amazing vista.  Your call… So that’s what scares me, is they can’t…

Jeff: All right, let’s go back.

Are we talking about our walk or our life decisions once we step out of a school? Either situation fits the dialogue.

Liz: I always used to say the school would be okay if I get hit by a bus, but I don’t think that’s how the walk should end.

Jeff: No, really. It was going to be her last walk anyway.

Speaking of walks…

Jeff: It’s funny we’re walking because one year somebody else, I can’t even remember what it was, but I heard somebody talking about … the walk and talk. And so I had goals meetings in the fall with faculty, and they were all going to be walk and talks. And it was great because we could do this loop around Peabody, and it was a 25 minute thing.

… I’ll never know the road not taken, but it sure seemed like they were speaking a little more from the heart, a little less guarded, maybe because they didn’t have to sit in an office and look their supervisor in the eye.

Liz: That’s part of the goal right now. You and I are not looking at each other.

Jeff: I’m sure it is. And I look back and I’m like, why did it take me 20 whatever years to realize they don’t have to sit in a fucking office to have conversations that probably aren’t going to be even as good? But now there’s some meetings that need to happen there, but most of them probably don’t.

Liz: You’re not going to counsel a family out of your school on a walk and talk. Although maybe it would have been beneficial.

Jeff: These walks are different. 

Liz: Yeah Oh.

Jeff: Very different. 

Liz: Very different. And I didn’t give myself credit that this really was an occupation for the past year. But I never felt like I was working.

Jeff: That’s great. 

I lose myself when I write these blogs. Every. Time. A man sitting next to me on the plane commented that he didn’t want to interrupt me. He had never seen anyone so invested in what they were doing. I hadn’t even said hello to him in what turned out to be a five hour flight. I wasn’t in seat 12C. I was walking through Central Park in my mind. I was immersed in getting Kermit’s story out of my head and onto the page…more gift… than work.

Jeff: Do you have another project bubbling in your mind? This has really inspired you or fueled you.

Liz: Sure. I have… That’s the one thing about doing Edge, is it unlocked the little piece of me that says, oh, you don’t just have to ask what if, you can try it. Hit that entrepreneurial go button. So I don’t know that I want to be a founder of a software company, but I certainly am not going to take the status quo. And I like the fact that I interviewed and presented authentically for this new position. So there’s no façade.

Jeff: Yeah, you’ve said that before. And that’s surprising because I think of you as one of the most authentic people I know. Have you felt pressure in the past to not do that?

Liz: Oh, I completely lost myself as a head of school. 

But not this time. Not for PAIS.

Liz: …because I was with you, there was not a single moment that I worried about what somebody was going to think of the Executive Director of an Association being dragged along in a radio flyer.

Jeff: In a radio. I forgot that’s who they were called. That’s awesome.

Liz: But that’s because I was with you.

Jeff: Well, you’re sweet. Well, we go way back. That’s for sure.

Liz: Yeah.

Jeff: It just always felt like there’s just no pretense.

Liz: I’m not sad that this is The Last Walk. Luke will say of Chapter One, who knows what Chapter Two is going to look like.. Because without knowing it, and I know that you love me, but you haven’t listened to a single walk. That’s okay.  You have actually brought up almost everything that all these walks have been about. Completely unintentionally, and I didn’t direct the conversation. I feel like you grabbed a sound bite from almost every single walk.

55 walks. One year of my life. Eric, Luke and I determined it takes almost ten hours for each walk. 33,000 minutes. More if you count the hours I spend thinking about each walk when I am not writing. And I would not have wanted to spend my time any other way. What do you want to do? They asked. I want to walk with people who want to help me figure that out, I said. I could not be more grateful. This amount of love is actually immeasurable.

Liz: Thanks, buddy. 

Jeff: I love you. 

Liz: I love you, too. 

Jeff: That was good.

Liz: It was good. 

Jeff: I’m honored to be 

Liz: My Last

Jeff: …the temporary last one. 

Liz: That’s it.

I started walking because I had left the job that had defined me for years, lost both of my parents within a crushing span of time, and woke up one morning not knowing who Liz Hofreuter was if she wasn’t a Head of School, wasn’t someone’s daughter, wasn’t moving through her days with the certainty of purpose. I found that I am still a learner, still curious, still willing to not know. I found that I am still a teacher who believes every single child… and adult… deserves to feel seen and celebrated and safe. 

What I hope you learned… when you lose your way—and you will, we all do—find someone to walk with…and laugh. God, please laugh as much as you can. Let it transport you. Let it heal you. Let it remind you that joy is transformational and connection is everything.

Because here’s what I know for certain after fifty-five walks: We are not meant to do this alone. We are meant to walk together, to lean on each other, to hold space for each other’s joy and grief and questions and blunders. As Parker put it so well, we need to leave room for wonder.

We are meant to be each other’s sunshine.

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TROY: Death ain’t nothing. I done seen him. Done wrassled with him. You can’t tell me nothing about death. Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. And you know what I’ll do to that! Lookee here, Bono… am I lying? You get one of them fastballs, about waist high, over the outside corner of the plate where you can get the meat of the bat on it… and good god! You can kiss it goodbye. Now, am I lying? If I’m lying… that 450 feet worth of lying!

Death ain’t nothing to play with. And I know he’s gonna get me. I know I got to join his army… his camp followers. But as long as I keep my strength and see him coming… as long as I keep up my vigilance… he’s gonna have to fight to get me. I ain’t going easy.

Such is the literary description of death as masterfully crafted by August Wilson in the play, Fences. Death is to be wrestled with. It is a fight. Indeed, we often read that one lost a courageous battle to death. 

At the end of Act Two, Troy assumes a batting stance, and starts to taunt  Death, “Come on! It’s between you and me now! Come on! Anytime you want . . . but I ain’t gonna be easy.” The actor stands alone on stage, the lights go down, and the scene ends. I have never sat in the audience witnessing the theatrics of this play out on the stage. I have only taught this play to my English students decades ago. I can only imagine the emotion that Denzel Washington could stir in his audience. The heartbreak for this man whom you have grown to love from the third row, fourth seat from the right. When the lights once again come up, Troy is dead. Opportunities are missed. 

August Wilson’s genius lies in showing us that our mortality gives weight to our choices. Every conversation matters because the number of them is finite. Every relationship shapes the future because our time to influence it is limited.

I have often said I didn’t know it was my last conversation with my mom or my dad. My last chance to say I love you or to hear them say it.  What I did know was that the last chance was approaching. Life and literature had taught me to brace myself against death. Life was to be extended as if hours clocked was the metric that mattered most. I watched my father lean into his prescribed medical thinking to extend his wife’s life. I witnessed his frustration then anger as he could not save her… or should I say fix her… or maybe keep her with him. As his hours unexpectedly waned, I did not have the medical background to know how to extend his time or to improve the quality of his life remaining. I turned to a friend from graduate school, William Peters, Bill, as I knew him, who had developed a template for a peaceful crossing from life into death for us both.

Liz: I started to say to you the other day … I think I lose my mind as my dad was dying if I didn’t have you on speed dial. I had very little understanding of how to come to the end of his life and be the main person there. I wasn’t at all prepared. I didn’t feel like I had treated him well as my stepmother was dying. I mean, I would have been a mess. And you, that’s why I called … I had to get the words right. You helped me so much just taking all the nonsense away and literally telling me what to do.

William: I remember. The truth of the matter is I have been so involved with studying and being present to many hundreds and hundreds of deaths. And probably the most important thing that was shocking to me about this was how little people actually know about what happens at the end of life… you have super smart people like you who have an aging parent…

…and all we know is the unwelcome nature of death. The language we use betrays us: we “fight” cancer, we “battle” illness, we “lose” to disease. 

William: You have a medical model who sees death as a failure, and they want no part of that. They are committed at all costs to keeping people alive, even when they know that the quality of life is awful.

Liz: You also… You just called death a failure, but recently in a conversation, you said we have this cultural norm that you fight death.

William: Exactly.

Liz: And that’s wrong, too.

William: That’s wrong, too. I mean, dare say I, because I haven’t, fortunately, at this point, faced my own death. But everything I know about myself is that it is going to be something like this… Well, I have this diagnosis, and I have these choices. And what is the best thing to do here might be that doing a medical intervention is the right thing to do. But as I say that, what really goes through my mind is really very little about me. It’s really about who are the people in my life who need me? Because for me, death is no big deal. I mean, it’s just to transition into another state of being. But for my daughter, for my mother, for my partner, for some good friends, I have to take that into consideration and want to take that into consideration. But I don’t have a personal… How would you say this? Imperative to stay alive. Or even to see my grandchildren. I don’t have that. That, to me, is not… That may not be my destiny. But I do have what I would call a relational imperative to check in with and dialog with my loved ones, honestly, about my situation and make a familial communal decision about what is best for all involved here.

William Peters’ work with the Shared Crossing Project encourages a conscious, connected, and loving experience shared between the dying and their loved ones. Where August Wilson gave us a frantic last stand, alone and without family, Peters’ research reveals something closer to a gentle crossing over, often filled with unexpected calm, bliss, and joy. The three essential expressions he advocates—”Thank you, I love you, Goodbye” as I shared in an earlier walk, allow us to open our hearts for one final act different from the fate that awaited Troy.

Liz: So how did you create the Thank you. I love you. Goodbye. How did you create that? Because if someone else doesn’t have the gift of knowing you or of being part of the work that you’ve done, it’s still so simple that anybody could do it. 

William: So for me, when I first got into this, the work with the shared death experience, my aspiration was, well, I know that if people knew this experience was possible, they’d want to say, how can I have it with my loved ones? So I started developing methods to enable the shared death experience, because in my mind, it was the best death possible. You have a shared death experience. You realize that your now departed loved one is alive and well. They’re happy. They’re experiencing joy. Joy and love. They’re reunited with previously deceased relatives. You have a sense you’ll see them again. So this feels like more of a vacation, if you will. A time apart is temporary, not permanent. You have no question about whether they’re alive or nonexistent. You know they’re alive, and your grief is much better. So your grief is just contextualized in the understanding that death is a natural part of life, but you’ll see your loved ones again. So my goal was to give this to people. The truth of the matter is I didn’t even have to think about it. All of a sudden, it just became three things right away. First was to affirm these experiences. You first have to convince people that the shared death experience and other spiritual end-of-life experiences are normal. They happen with great frequency, and you can anticipate that you’ll have those if you are open-minded, if you’re more accepting of death as a natural human process. The second thing that came into my mind is we have to deal with our unfinished business. So you have to really deal with any sense of relational dissonance, acrimony. Those are emotional blocks that will prohibit the SDE. And I learned that, you’ve got to help people die.

Liz: I think those emotional blocks are where this element of fighting death comes from, because even the person that’s dying, they have unfinished business. 

William: Correct. In a certain way, some people could say, well, I have more to do here. And that could be unfinished business. But that’s also a misunderstanding that at some point we have to die. And your list is less important than your natural life expectancy. Once you realize that you’re not in control of that, then there’s a real freedom. But for some people, it’s a real frustration, something they resist. Like, I don’t want to die now. But that’s also a cultural piece of the Western mind, which is diluted into this notion of rugged individualism and self-determinism.

… to answer your question, specifically, the thank you, I love you, goodbye, is the last step in dealing with unfinished business before you start doing the choreographed guided visualization. That’s the step of saying, Hey, I know you’re going to die, or, Hey, you know I’m going to die. I want you to listen very closely to me. I want to thank you for having shared this life with me. I want to tell you that I love you, and I’ve cherished most moments with you and any tension, disagreements, misgivings, regrets that I have for us, for you, for me. I now forgive myself and you of any of that. I absolve us from our relationship, of any of that. And that we are now free to accept one another 100 %. And with that, I want to let you know that I have no illusions that I am not going to be dying soon or that you’re not going to be dying soon.

So I want to say thank you and goodbye. And now that goodbye, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to say goodbye. I hope that we have more time together. But I want you to know as I look at you, our end is near. And so there’s a really beautiful way of just stepping into that. And so doing that, that opens us up to the next and final step is, how do you prepare for the greatest transition in a human life outside of or equal to birth coming in. So that’s how I came to all that.

This gentler notion of death has its roots in William’s own life.

William: My grandmother was dying and when I was with her, I realized she was having these conversations with people, and they felt real to me. And I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And I started getting interested in what is happening at the end of a human life. I had already had two near-death experiences, one when I broke my back on a ski slope, and a second one when I had a rare blood disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenia, where I was drowning in my own  blood, and so I had an out-of-body experience.

While I was watching my grandmother, I was like, ‘She’s both here and somewhere else.’ And that was very interesting to me. And she was having conversations with what I would call a being from another dimension. I couldn’t see this person. Maybe this person was in this dimension. I couldn’t break through to even get to my grandmother. I walked in, she didn’t even know I was there. So with that, I got interested in the end of life.

I decided to join Zen Hospice in San Francisco. And when I did that, here I am sitting at the bedside of many, many people dying, 24-bed, open ward hospice, public hospice, county run. So indigent people with nowhere to go. And we get the opportunity to sit with these people at the end of life because no one else is there for them. Think homeless people, what have you. So I start having these experiences where I’m sitting with somebody, and all of a sudden, I’m out of my body, looking down at them and my body, and the whole shape and dimension of the room is completely different. I’m in a different dimension. And I’m like, this is really interesting. Well, It’s interesting in and of itself, but it’s also like, hey, wait a minute. I’ve been here before in my two previous NDEs, and this is really interesting. And why isn’t anybody talking about this? So this began a very deep exploration of what really is death and dying, what does happen to us. But it took a while because I was reticent to go off in this direction because it’s pretty extreme. 

Talking with Bill had me thinking about death from a new perspective. One my father didn’t have. As a doctor, death must have felt like the ultimate professional contradiction. He spent years learning to read vital signs as data points—when blood pressure drops, you give pressors; when the heart stops, you start compressions. My step-mother’s death must have been not just a medical failure but a personal one, the moment when all his knowledge and skill proved insufficient. What pain that must have been for him. I am rethinking our final weeks together.

My mother, on the other hand, spent the last decades of her medical career bearing witness to many deaths. Perhaps she understood better than anyone the strange mercy in knowing when to step back from the machines and medications, when to shift from curing to comforting. 

Liz: I think my mom had done her own training throughout her medical career once she left my dad and was working at that state hospital where no one got discharged. Every single patient died because it was major head trauma or end of life or dementia. And what she was so good at was helping the families accept it. And I think it’s a shame that she never got to talk to you about her work as a physician doing that, because I think she would have had a great deal of wisdom.

William: Yeah. Well, your mom sounds like she was one of those angels in the system who had found her place where she was more than her role.

Liz: …she was throughout her career. My dad would be furious with her because she would spend so long talking to the patient and asking the patient questions. She wouldn’t see as many patients in a given day as he had created the business model for them to see.

William: Well, and there you see it. When medicine is a business model, I think you’re at odds with humanity. And then, of course, then again, maybe it’s not on medical doctors to do the rest of that. Maybe the best use of them is to use their training and just do the diagnosis and treatment models and offer them that, but then get out of the way and let someone else engage them in their choices. If that’s the case, I’m perfectly fine with it. 

Liz: As you’re talking, I’m thinking about metrics and how this cancer center tells you working with us gives you five extra years of life. Well, if that’s your metric, that’s great. But is your metric how much quality of life you had in those five years and how peaceful the end was?

William: I always say two years of fun and enjoyment to each other with a swifter, nonmedicalized death is better than five years, of which five of that is on medication, and throwing up, and sweating, and losing hair, and aches and pains… a lot of the dying will say, I don’t want to do this to my partner.

Liz: My mom said all the time, I don’t want to be a burden.

William: Exactly. And that’s not an unhealthy response. Sometimes it can be a little bit based on shame of not feeling they’re worthy of care. But a lot of times it’s just like, yeah, I’ve lived a full life. And I don’t want it to be a burden to my family who’s got bigger fish to fry than taking care of somebody who’s lived their life. Go hang out with the grandchildren and know that I love you and support you. And we’ll be cheering for you from the other side. Let’s do a hug and a kiss. And I love you and thank you. And you go live your life fully and don’t stay a day longer than you have to.

Liz: My mom was ready to die. She would say, the Lord will take me when He’s ready. I knew that, and she said that a lot. And I know in the quiet of her place, she had to pray. Aren’t you ready yet?  And yet it was very difficult to administer morphine at the end of her life.

William: Well, this is a very sensitive area in end-of-life care. 

Liz: I feel like I killed her.

William: So there it is, right there. Terminal sedation is one of those things that happens quite regularly… I always say, treat the pain. And if you end up sedating them so much that it hastens death, then you need to understand that that’s compassionate care. If death comes, death comes. A lot of people come into my office feeling guilty, ashamed, like they did it wrong. And my job in those situations is, “Yeah, I see how you struggled with this. And you did the right thing. You did the right thing.”

Liz: We just all want somebody to tell us we did okay.

William: Exactly. 

Liz: There was a point, and I think even you were surprised how quickly I was calling you because my mom was dying soon after my dad died. And you said, What’s going on? And I told you what was going on. And in the tone of voice that only you can have, you said, ‘Oh, yes, she’s dying.’ And I told you she had just said to me, ‘Elizabeth, everyone will know your name.’ And I had said back to her, ‘That’s because you’re my mama.’ And you said, ‘No, she is trying to give you a gift. You have to accept it.’ And I was so glad you said that to me. 

When my dad died early, early, early on a Sunday morning, and I left Saturday morning when the caregivers got there. I’d spent the night, and I went to his bedside, and he said, Am I dead? And I said, Dad, I know I have the face of an angel, but no, This is not heaven. You are not dead. And he chuckled, and I chuckled. And I went into the kitchen to do the thing you do. Here’s the last time he had his meds. Here’s where we are, all those things. And because he and I had just had this exchange, I expected to come back later that day to still have my father. As I was getting ready to go, with as much strength as I’d seen him have in months, he screamed, Elizabeth, I love you. And I didn’t go back to him. I screamed it right back. I love you, too, dad.

When I got back, he no longer was communicative. 

William: Unresponsive.

Liz: Completely unresponsive. And that night, I was changing his diaper. I was using the glycerin lollipops to moisten his mouth. And he willed his death quickly in my mind because there was no way that was the relationship he wanted with me. You had told me about soft lighting and good music. And I sat down on that bed next to him, and turned the lights down. And I played the music that I played when my son died. And I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t told me to. 

Bill walked me through my parents’ deaths. I cannot think of a more profound gift.

William: People say, oh, my God, you’ve made such a contribution. I mean, we go to these conferences and there’s hundreds of people after we give a talk. It’s even sometimes hard for me to take it in because I do what I do because this is what I’m called to do. But when someone comes to you and says, you, your book changed my life. Your talk made all the difference in the death with my mom. And we hear this all the time. I’m grateful that my life has had that effect on people. And at the same time, I say, it’s not really my business. I did what I came here to do. And I think I just followed the breadcrumbs and made the best … I mean, look it. I made the best of it. But I think it’s really important to note that I would be not authentic if I said this was the life I wanted, I planned, I worked hard, I manifested. None of that is true. This was the life that was the process of taking the best available option, knowing what my knowledge base was, knowing what my gifts were, knowing what I was capable of doing. And yeah, I definitely work hard. I was going to work hard no matter what. That’s just who I am. I work hard. But like I said. I don’t know. I just did what I could do.

That’s all any of us can do.

Standing alone on that stage production of Fences, taunting death with his baseball metaphors, the character of Troy embodied everything our culture teaches us about how to face the end. Fight hard. Go down swinging. What if, rather than seeing death as the pitcher trying to strike him out, he had recognized his family as the teammates ready to walk him home? Troy’s defiance, though dramatically compelling, left him alone under those stage lights—isolated in his struggle, cut off from the very connections that might have made his crossing something shared rather than solitary. And for those who’ve never sat vigil in those quiet hours, trust me, it’s there, in the dim light of 3 AM when the rest of the world sleeps, that you discover death isn’t a violent intruder we’ve been taught to expect. Instead, you find yourself not in the audience but in a supporting role for one final act of profound connection.

Thank you. 

I love you. 

Good bye.

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There is a moment that sneaks up on you that is unexpected and unwelcome. It is the moment the first service personnel calls you ma’am. You realize you present as more mature. You convince yourself it is a sign of respect, but you know it is a slippery slope to senior status. Senior what? In my world that means top of the food chain, extra privileges, a beginning of a new life lying in wait just around the corner. Senior Citizen? Well, there’s something damn jarring about that. Society, it seems, has collectively decided that I have hit the age that marks the beginning of my decline. As if I was handed a script suggesting my vibrant chapters should now gracefully give way to a quieter, more contained existence. Bullshit. I am reclaiming senior status with all its positives from high school vernacular for myself and my contemporaries. We are going to cut the lunch line, decorate our parking spots, and embrace a new chapter of living all with a much slower metabolism. Who says there should be an expiration date for ambition, for reinvention? My most interesting stories are still unwritten. 

Carolyn: Nobody really prepares us for this phase in life. Nobody really talks about it. I mean, I think they talk about it more now than ever before, but there’s a long way to go. And you have to really be your own advocate in this journey at our phase. 

Monica: There’s two big components you guys just broke out. Number one, women aren’t really seen in health care and are often dismissed. Particularly after we pass the age of “productivity,” which is the Western model, to be productive, we can feel put out to pasture. Part of that is, we’re going back to a patriarchal order that does not witness the different ages that women have. We’re way more start and stop with our hormonal rhythms than men are. Andropause is long and slow and gentle. Menopause is abrupt and shocking. We get hot and angry and dry.

Liz: All the things I felt so far today.

Monica: In indigenous cultures, there are rites of passage for teenage girls starting their menstrual cycle. There’s a rite of passage for entering, exiting the motherhood stage and entering the wise elder, the crone stage. 

Liz: The crone stage. 

Monica: The crone stage, yeah. Which doesn’t sound attractive, but it is the embodiment of grandmother wisdom. The grandmother is revered in the tribe and is like a secret wisdom holder. But in the West, we don’t have a place to elevate. There’s nothing that elevates us in this stage. As we’re experiencing this transition, we have a loss of identity. We feel like chopped liver because we don’t have a story that takes us into our wisdom stage, which is what this is.

Carolyn: Well, it’s our wisdom stage, but we’re also a culture which is going, I think, in a really horrifying direction as far as what beauty looks like. And with all the cosmetic surgery and people and women trying to fight aging in a way that I find very uncomfortable instead of women embracing their wisdom and their age, they’re fighting it in a way that re-defines what beauty is.

I embrace my aging reflection in the mirror. Indeed as I walk with my contemporaries,  Monica Williams and Carolyn Greenfield, I see only their passion and spirit, appreciating their style. I am inspired by the less travelled paths they have chosen and at no point am I wondering what beauty products they use. We don’t feel like we fit inside the box that once contained our folded, compliant selves. Carolyn turned a creative hobby into a successful jewelry business. She is the artist behind almost every piece of jewelry I wear. 

Liz: I only wear your jewelry, with the exception of a gift and the ring I designed. And every time someone comments on what they call in my neighborhood, ‘the Liz necklace,’ there’s a moment when you and I are connected. It’s empowering that you chose to do this and that you’ve made so much out of it. 

Carolyn: Well, thank you. That’s very flattering. I like to make things with my hands, and I like to be creative. And although it is not something that anyone “needs,” what gives me great joy is to see people wearing things that I made with confidence and it looks different from one person to the next. I can be in a room of crazy, dynamic women, and they’re all wearing things that I’ve made differently than each other. And nobody knows, except for me, that it came from Carden Avenue. It gives me pleasure just seeing you wear it with confidence. 

Liz: But I think you’re doing more than working with your hands. I think you’re curating a place of joy and calm. I don’t know. There are times I just want to be in your jewelry studio.

Calm was also a destination for Monica as she chose a path out of chaos that walked her right out of the emergency room sliding doors following the pandemic.

Monica: I was a full-time emergency physician during COVID, and I did not contract COVID until October of 2022. And it didn’t put me in the hospital, but it put me in bed for two weeks. And I haven’t had an illness as an adult that took so long to recover from. I was going through menopause at the same time, so a double hit. The joints on my right-hand started to swell up in the second week of my recovery. After I was fully recovered, those joints of my hand would swell up in the middle of a night shift… after a glass of red wine… or after too much stress. I got very clear there was a line that had been drawn in the sand. My body gave me a clear signal that this level of stress is a pathologic state, and it was turning on an acute arthritis, which is another pathologic state. And genetically, we see that one disease state turns on other disease states that are latent. And so I just thought, I need to obey this because this could be a clear sign from my body telling me, ‘You have two pathways here.’ I actually quit full-time emergency medicine practice and spent the next year healing. 

Carolyn: What did that year look like?

Monica: Well, I retrained in genomic-based health. I started seeing patients who were the 15% of people who fall outside of the textbook that are generally dismissed by doctors, those tend to be women, tend to be medically complicated, may not have a classic box or category that their lab work identifies them as having “X.” So they feel very unseen, and they’re very sick. And these were the people I attracted as patients because genetically, we could look at you and say, “This is the blueprint. These are the cards you’ve dealt. And these things are trying to wake up. They just haven’t reached laboratory significance yet. But we can work on them and bring them back down, cool them off.” Because that was my own experience in my own health.

Liz: So the arthritis, you cooled off?

Monica: Yep. So whatever genetic pathways were turning that on, when I came out of my state of distress, it was self-induced and career-induced and COVID-induced. It was just the convergence of all of these different stressors. And my blood pressure was out of control, my kidney function was starting to get abnormal. So my ship was sinking, and I got very clear, “Well, I’m not ready to fully decline. I have three children who are dependent on me only, so I need to change my life if I’m going to not be disabled.”

Liz: You’re talking about a medical IEP. In education, we’re talking about an IEP for everyone, including teachers and administrators because we all learn differently. That’s basically what we’re saying. Let’s stop talking about us as late ’50s women because it’s Carolyn, it’s Liz, it’s Monica.

Monica: Exactly. That’s where traditional medicine is no longer going to apply to us because we have algorithms for your blood pressure. We’ll start with this medication, we’ll move to this one, we’ll add in a third. But those are based on population-based studies, and none of us is a statistic. 

If we looked at our genetic profile, we may or may not fit that Bell Curve. If I’m treating you according to what’s under the thick part of the Bell Curve, and you’re one standard deviation out, well, you’re going to feel like medicine has failed you because it has. That’s the future of medicine, which will make it personalized… construct something that’s good for all people and it’s not leaving anyone out. 

Liz: I love the feeling of hope in what you just said.

I can’t help but think that the fact that you chose to follow a passion and design jewelry, and Monica chose to step off the treadmill and not be a full-time ER doc. And I walked away from the next, and next, and next in the education ladder, provides some role model for things that can be different from the way we were taught to consume and achieve…

Carolyn: I think it’s so important to mirror or to demonstrate your work ethic, regardless of what it is. It’s super important that you’re doing something that you love. I do think that our generation of kids values that more than any other generation that’s come before us.

Liz: Yeah, I love that you give yourself grace there that we grew up differently. 

Carolyn: Well, it’s what we’re learning from our kids. And when you make that shift, you have as much to learn as they do.

Monica: Crone Wisdom 101. 

Always willing to learn but always aware we are modeling and teaching our daughters.

Liz: There was a moment, New Year’s Day a year ago… when I was headed into the last semester of being a Head of school and thought at that moment I was going to be the CEO of a software startup. We were having our philosophical “what’s ahead in the new year conversation” and I was overwhelmed to say, “Girls, I don’t know what will come next, and I may fail, but I want to do this because I want you to know it’s okay to risk, to fail, and to learn.” And my God, if I didn’t fail large.

Monica: I would give you a standing ovation for that talk. 

Liz: Thank you. They both just gave me the daughter nod.

Carolyn: It’s the obligatory daughter “I know” nod. 

Monica: But you know what? That probably unnerved them a little bit since you’re their stabilizing force. But that will give them confidence and bravery and unseen moments in their lives.

Liz: I’ll take that. True or not, I’ll just take that.

Carolyn: No, it’s true. You’re putting yourself in a very vulnerable situation.

Monica likes to say we are individuals, not a population. I like that. I don’t want my failures or my age to be someone else’s cautionary tale or a problem to be managed. I want to be an individual. I want to write my next chapter as an adventure of learning, of unbridled joy all while being grounded and more balanced. I am after all a human being …not a human doing.

Monica: My main sense of loss has been around energy because I was way more energetic when I was younger, but I also abused that. I thought my body could do anything. So now I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m energetically limited, but I’m trying to find the gift in that, and I’ve interpreted it as there’s less energy for doing, so there’s more space for being. And that really should be what the last phase of life should be about, in my opinion.

Carolyn: Well, that’s what I was going to say. I feel like there’s been a shift for me in that your life doesn’t have to be so task-oriented, but it’s all about, how do you want to spend your time? And what do you do with that time? And that goes to your whole idea of being, right? What is it that fuels you? Because it might not be the same thing it was 20 years ago.

I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m just increasingly aware all the time about how you’re so invincible for a period of time in your life, at least you think you are, right? And then there’s a shift, and I’m not sure when that is, but you all of a sudden, maybe it’s when we become moms, or maybe it’s… I mean, who knows what the shift is, and I’m sure it’s different for everyone. But your viewpoints change because you just realize how fragile life can be.

Monica: We just visited a 75-year-old friend who works with homeless boys in Kenya and raises money for an orphanage there for them. She’s like, I must curate my remaining time and devote my active energy to what matters most, even if I find these other things interesting. So what’s the best use of the action principle that I still have remaining? And she’s an elder, wise, crone woman. I could take that from her. I could see the wisdom from which she was practicing. I found all of that inspiring.

We talk about “managing” time as if it were something we could control, when really what we’re doing is making choices about where we place our attention. There’s something almost sacred about deciding to be fully present with the people who matter most—putting down the phone during dinner, lingering a moment longer in conversation, choosing the walk with an old friend and a new friend over the to-do list with which you arrived.

Liz: I keep saying when I’m writing these walks, that these were the right people. And I don’t really know why some of them were involved, like even this walk, it wasn’t planned. And yet we’re standing in the midst of a conversation and I knew it had to be part of the series. 

Monica: Yeah, the right people. You take the opportunities when they present themselves to reconnect with the people that do make you feel good.

I used to guide parents to think about the adults who were in their children’s windshield. When they look up and around every day, who do they see? Who is serving as a role model. For their most formative years, Grace and Ella had the right people in their windshields. They are still there. I never once thought about my wind shield until I started on this journey of walks. I’ll be honest I have not always had the right people in my windshield, so I’m grounding myself to connect with people who make me feel inspired, calm, happy. These two women fit that bill. I knew I had to walk with them. For me. There were hours of conversation I didn’t record. I wish I did. You would be inspired. But maybe it was enough that we had those discussions. That we inspired each other.

There are rare souls who make us feel more like ourselves when we’re with them. They are the right people for this later chapter of my life. They bring hope. They are present. They fill my soul. 

Carolyn: it’s in your heart.

They see in me what I am becoming: not a woman diminished by age, but one amplified by wisdom and seasoned by laughter. I am at the beginning of the most beautiful chapter that opens the moment you stop apologizing and start celebrating the profound grace of a life fully lived as imperfect as it is. Yes ma’am, I am stepping into my crone, and she is glorious.

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Here’s what I’ve learned from wrestling with a blank page: writer’s block isn’t really about writing…or not writing for that matter. It’s about everything else. It’s about the schedule of the day ahead. It’s about the conversation I had with an old friend moments ago… or even months ago. It’s a voice that whispers, “This one has to be good.” It’s about the gap of expectations – the space between potential and perfectionism. 

Maybe writer’s block is really just a necessary pause – that space between stimulus and response where wisdom edges its way in. We have to walk around our ideas – see them from various perspectives – especially in unexpected ways. 

Liz: We were talking about what I call writer’s block, but you said you get it even in a non-creative situation. Can you say more about that?

JD: Yeah, not so much creative, but I always try to find something unique or different or something that somebody’s not thinking about, deeper insight into whatever the topic or the business or the issue might be to bring something to the forefront. So you’re not always having the same conversation about the same thing. You’re digging in. In an operating environment, you’re actually identifying and solving an underlying problem in the business or taking advantage of something that’s going well. So what are those things? How can you identify them? Then what are you doing about them? Either to fix them or to leverage off of it.

Liz: So do you try to tell the story of the thing that’s going well?

JD: First of all, what is it that’s just out of the norm so we’re not having the same conversation all the time? Then what are you going to do to fix it? Or what are you going to do to lever off of it? Or when I was in the field a lot, I used to call it, give the client a gift. Tell them something about their business that they don’t know and that you have taken the time to understand or draw insights into from them.

Give them a gift. I’ll get back to how that applies in the business world, but I have to pause. When Jon Grandstaff, JD as I still call him, said those words on our walk, I stumbled. They had that big of an impact on me. These walks are a gift. Individually and collectively they have been a gift to me – grounding me, inspiring me…. stoking my curiosities and highlighting the simple magnificence that comes from someone’s story. I didn’t intend for them to be a gift to the person with whom I walk, but I have found that they are. It is a gift to slow down a hectic day for a walk. It is a gift to be seen. It is a gift to know someone wants to share your insights with the world because they are so profound. As JD says, I tell them something about themselves that they didn’t see as remarkable and draw insights for others.

And some walks offer unexpected gifts to readers and listeners. You hear something that screams, “You are not alone” and maybe you see something in your life a little differently. 

Let’s return to JD’s explanation of how this applies to business – perhaps, you are asking yourself what business? – I ask myself that too. I’ll try to get to that answer for you… think of it as a gift coming later.

JD: give the client a gift. Tell them something about their business that they don’t know and that you have taken the time to understand or draw insights into from them.

Liz: Can you think of an example?

JD: In the business we’re in, and you’re in the field with clients, I’d always try to look deeper into the data to tell them something about health care utilization or trend or spend areas or provider behavior that may be questionable, that maybe they didn’t know about themselves. We can be that consultative strategic partner and just not the typical vendor relationship. So you’re of value.

Liz: I love that you were pulling a story from data. Do you live in numbers and data?

JD: All day, every day.

Liz: And yet you recognize that the best connection when you’re with a client or now with your team is more in the storyline.

JD: You have to tell a story from it. What does it tell you? Why? Why do I care about that? It’s the old “so what” conversation.

I love being in the field with clients, understanding what’s working well, what’s not, what their needs are, trying to move a conversation to the next level, get something done with them. 

Liz: Why did you like that?

JD: I always wanted to be seen as a problem solver because I never was a sales guy. But I was always looking for ways to grow businesses and grow work that we’re doing with clients, but more from the perspective of being of value.

Being of value. Isn’t that what we all want? I remember Angi Evans admitting her thoughts on retirement, “I matter. In a certain segment of the world. I matter. People notice if I’m not there. I think I will miss that. I’ve become very used to mattering in the world.” 

There was something about her honesty and vulnerability that has stayed with me. We don’t just want to belong somewhere – we want to belong in a way that matters and not just for our utility but because we made a difference in a project, or in a life. 

I remember thinking years before my father retired, “I wish he would slow down.” I voiced that to a friend of his. He disagreed, “Your father has meant so much to so many people, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t work.” For a brief moment Dad was lost when he walked out of the CEO’s office at Wheeling Hospital. Now what? He didn’t wander far from his patient-centered life. He volunteered at a free clinic and remained a trusted medical advocate for friends and for me. I’d ask him about every ailment my daughters or friends had. I’d ask him for advice on kids at school, for referrals for teachers, and for guidance on our health insurance. The last one always eluded us both.

We should have asked JD. Turns out his business is healthcare finance.  As a woman who just navigated private pay through COBRA for herself and her daughters, I have some thoughts on health insurance, but I thought better of disclosing as much and asked JD for his opinion.

Liz: So what’s your take on health insurance in general as an individual, as a dad, as a family member? 

JD: I guess thinking about it, it’s one of those necessary evils in life. It’s so expensive and so cumbersome and so difficult. But if you didn’t have it, it would probably be pretty awful at the end of the day and detrimental to many of us. So I don’t know.

Liz: That’s an interesting comment.

JD: It would take so many families and individuals down financially and otherwise. They would not take care of themselves because they couldn’t afford to do it. Even with health care itself already being expensive, they would just not take care of themselves.

Liz: There was obviously a time that there was just a doctor and a patient, and there was a transaction. And somewhere along the way, insurance was born.

JD: Now that you say that, I never have really thought about that. But I assume it was somebody thinking they could do it better or more efficiently or more cost efficiently with this concept of accumulating people into groups and group rating individuals to get better cost. That’s the whole structure of HMOs and PPOs and having networks that you can put people together and spread cost around and you can drive volume to providers that justifies them giving breaks on costs.

Liz: The idea is I just pay a little bit regularly, and then I never get blindsided by a big bill, but I’m also in turn helping other people when they need it.

JD: Yeah. This year, you may not have much of a health care need, and you take certain fewer dollars out of the system, but somebody else has cancer this year, and they’re taking a lot out, so they can average that across a number of people, but keep it low for everyone.

Liz: And you work at the level above all that. Your support is of the insurance companies themselves.

JD: For the insurance companies, inherently …but I like to tell the story that we’re actually, to some extent, working on behalf of the individuals and the members. Because to the extent that we can help manage costs for the providers, it means that the health insurance companies now don’t have to charge such high premiums. If you don’t have to charge high premiums, you can care for more people.

Liz: That’s a good spin on it.

JD: Again, how do you tell the story? It’s about tying into what is my client’s reason, what’s their so what and their why, and their mission and objective is to, most always, provide great world-class care for their members. How am I a part of that conversation? How am I supporting their objectives? In terms of that gift and how I tie what I do to what clients need and want. 

Maybe it’s my athletic background or team environment, but I’m all about the team and collaboration. And as I say, sometimes all hands stacked in the middle.

Liz: You mean that moment before you go?

I couldn’t even find the words for the huddle – that moment of pure alchemy before a collective, explosive roar… before hands fly skyward and bodies scatter into formation… before individual goals manifest again. The individual strength in that close circle doesn’t just add up—it can multiply.

JD: Everybody’s got to be on the same page. Everybody’s got know the why. What I don’t do very well… I call it the ‘got you game,’ and I’ve had some very direct conversations with peers and other people about that whole thing.

Liz: In my life, I’ve noticed that direct conversations between people, even if they’re painful, are the only way to move forward. And if you can’t have those direct conversations, then it’s probably not the right place for me. Rick likes to say, ‘Bad news only takes so many minutes, and then it’s over. Stop fretting about it.’ 

JD: I mean, to the point, whatever I said earlier about being willing to face the brutal facts, whatever they are. I mean, we used to have a saying in my old company. We’d say that bad news doesn’t get better with time. So just speak it and live it and be brutally honest with yourself.

Liz: Oh, be brutally honest with yourself. Say more about that.

JD: You, as an individual, have to be willing to acknowledge and accept whatever it is, good or bad. Everyone will always accept the good, but you have to be willing to look at the bad as well and then challenge yourself with ‘Why was it bad? What am I going to do about it?’

Liz: Except sometimes, can’t we, without someone else… an outsider helping us, can’t we pick the wrong answer to ‘Why was it bad?’ Pick the victimization role? It was bad because of them instead of what I did? 

JD: Sure. I try and not always make it about someone else. But all right, so what was our role in what they did? Someone else may have ultimately done whatever. But aren’t we ultimately accountable with them?

Liz: And you can’t change them. You can only change you.

JD: But if we had a better process, a better tool, a better way of this, a better that … better whatever… could we have kept them out of that scenario altogether? Maybe not always, but we should always challenge ourselves.

Liz: I think if I’ve learned anything in the past two years is just to hold space because you don’t have all the information, and if you’re quick to judge or act without all the information, you’re going to be wrong. So if you hold space, there’s something else coming and I can work within this parameter of what I have, you’ll be more successful. 

JD: Well, and a lot of that comes from a certain level of trust as well. 

One invisible thread weaves through every successful collaboration, productive meeting, breakthrough innovation or just a good walk: trust. Whether you’re leading a team or navigating a difficult conversation, trust serves as the fundamental currency in the transaction. Without it, even the most talented teams crumble under miscommunication, and defensiveness. With it, trust creates a safety net that allows people to take risks, share ideas, and navigate hard times. During one of my hardest times, it was JD I trusted to be a steady, logical presence. It was he who was my safety net.

Liz: I think I’ve learned more about you on this walk than I even knew I would learn. But there was no question in my mind when I felt lost in a storm, You were a lighthouse. And it’s not just because you’re so much taller than I am… There’s going to be a moment where we stop and take a picture, and it’ll be clear to anyone who hears or reads this that we are not of the same size. 

JD: We’ll find a rock for you to stand on. 

Liz: Yeah, right. Might need more than a rock… but I just felt like, here’s a steady hand that I can hand the controls to. And I’m very appreciative of it.

JD: Well, thank you for trusting me in that. I don’t know that I deserved it. I’m appreciative that you trusted me.

Liz: No, of course you did. And the truth of the matter is, none of us think we deserve those, I don’t know, recognitions, or acknowledgements. But you said yourself it works better when you see the transaction between people as a gift you’re giving. And I don’t think we all think that way… but should. 

Maybe writer’s block isn’t about having nothing to say. Maybe it’s about learning to listen to what wants to be said, and then finding the courage to say it imperfectly, authentically, one word at a time…or two.. such as thank you. JD, your steady consistent rational hand gave me peace and helped me navigate through a storm or two. Never as loudly or as clearly as the time you leaned forward as we rode an escalator and you whispered, “as long as you have your girls.” Now those seven words were his greatest gift.

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