Liz Hofreuter

After I graduated from college, my mom stitched me a starfish with the caption “It makes a difference to this one.” It was a reference to the starfish story as told by the Honorable Andrew Young at my Baccalaureate. She heard it as my calling. In her mother’s heart, he was speaking directly to me. “Make a difference – one child at a time.” 

35 years later I have met a soulmate in this call to service… an inspiring female doctor who changes the trajectory for a life… one patient at a time. Dr. Lauren Loya is reshaping the way to think about healthcare in her mission to address medicine with a more personalized touch.

The pivotal moment came when she met a patient turning 60, who had been prescribed 13 different medications. Though the patient’s lab results looked perfect, she felt anything but. Dr. Loya remembers, “She was tired, she couldn’t sleep, she had back pain, she was depressed. And I looked at her labs, as I’ve been taught to do, and they are all normal. I have her on all the right medications for her high blood pressure, her diabetes, her cholesterol, etc. Her numbers look great. I realized I had no tools to deal with her lack of vitality and her feeling of poor health.” There was a crucial gap between clinical data and actual patient well-being. She recognized that the system was more focused on treatments that generate revenue, like medications, tests and surgeries, than preventative care. Trained traditionally in family medicine, Dr. Loya realized she was merely managing symptoms rather than truly helping her patients achieve wellness. “I thought to myself, This isn’t what I came here to do. I didn’t go into medicine to manage medications to make the numbers look right. I thought I was going to help people.” 

Following her epiphany, she ventured into integrative health—a field that combines traditional medicine with lifestyle and holistic approaches. She sought to offer more than just prescriptions, delving into nutrition, supplements, and lifestyle changes to genuinely improve health outcomes. Yet, she remained an outlier in her field. This realization drove her to create a practice where the focus was on listening to individual patients and addressing their personal needs. Thus The Hormone Center was born.

I couldn’t help but draw similarities in our journeys. Without a diagnosis, there was little support for the patient. Substitute the word “student” for “patient” and we are now telling my story in education. It is not about the diagnosis. It is about the child. I was not in the business of surviving school. How could I focus on the learner with our current system?  

For me, I focused on cultivating a culture of possibility and innovation at Wheeling Country Day School. It wouldn’t change the educational system, but it would serve the children and the teachers within our school community. For Dr. Loya, she similarly transformed her own practice. 

There comes a point, however, when you feel like you aren’t doing enough. Yes, you are making a difference to one person, but the impact could be so much greater. Each of us had to ask ourselves, were we willing to take the risk to expand our reach? Were we going to step out and be a leader in disrupting the larger system? 

Dr. Loya started training others to join her practice locally. By mentoring others, she quadrupled her practice’s capacity, ensuring more people could benefit from her patient-centered approach. By sharing her knowledge and experience, she amplified her impact. Now she is casting a wider net to train other practitioners to extend this focus on health and wellness in treating people not symptoms. It’s a reminder that change often starts with one person refusing to accept the status quo. By focusing on what truly matters—people’s well-being—this doctor is making a difference, one patient at a time. 

As we discussed menopause and IVF, and the damaging misinformation around both, the need for women to share their stories to disrupt the system in support of other women was palpable. I could feel the nudge of the starfish to tell my own stories – even if it helped only one woman through her journey to motherhood and beyond.

In case it is not clear, being a mom is replete with moments of doubt and self-reflection, no matter who you are professionally. Even as a physician, there were countless times Dr. Loya questioned her abilities as a mother, seeking validation from external sources. “My mom died six weeks before my first child was born. I often feel lacking because I never had her to ask things. How do I know I’m doing the right things? My dad always said, ‘You’re a great mom.’ My husband said it on and on and on. And so I believe that must be true. But I don’t ever say it to myself. I always see where I am lacking.” 

Still, we can learn to recognize small victories—pause during those moments and give ourselves a little credit. 

One of the most profound lessons is the importance of being present – just listening. When Dr. Loya’s daughter faced social challenges on the playground, she realized the best thing she could do was simply acknowledge the child’s feelings. “I mean, what was I going to do? Go to the school and say, ‘Hey, school principal, like, these girls won’t let my daughter play with them at playtime.’ I don’t know. That just didn’t seem like the solution.”  As a school leader, I couldn’t agree more. I wish more parents practiced such presence. Dr. Loya focused on listening to her child. “All I could really do was say, ‘Wow, that really sucks.’” 

Maybe that’s the parenting refrain we should teach. “That sucks.”

After I learned Nicolas had no heartbeat, I had to make quite a few phone calls to friends and family. It was excruciating – reliving his loss over and over again. Then I reached my mom. Her response was exactly what I needed. “Shit. That sucks.”

I doubt it was her lifelong career in medicine that prompted such a response. It was her honesty, her vulnerability and her humility. This wasn’t about her or how she should respond. This wasn’t anything she could fix. She didn’t have to put her stamp on it. Whatever made her say that, it was scripted beautifully.

As the trail ended, so did our conversation.

Liz: I think that’s something else we share. You have people’s lives in your hands. I felt like I had people’s futures in my hands.  I couldn’t give up on a child. I had to find a way to help them. But I think that filters into other aspects of your life where you feel like you have to provide a solution, a fix, and sometimes you can’t.

Lauren: You can’t.

Liz: Even as a mom.

Lauren: Even as a mom. 

The best we can do is remember that we can make a difference – one life at a time – sometimes just by listening. And if necessary, follow the wisdom of Virginia Dulany, and simply respond, “That sucks.”

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In a frame on the wall of Brendan Largay’s office hangs a sepia-toned note. Although written in pencil decades ago, you can still discern:

October 26, 1986. 

Dear Mrs. Jocknick, 

Yesterday, I lied to you about being at my grandparents.  The only reason I didn’t do the assignment was because I was too lazy and did not want to do the work.  I am very sorry and I assure you it will never happen again.

Brendan (Largay)

Underneath it, in the perfect script of a 7th grade social studies teacher, it reads:

Hi Brendan, 

I found this in the bottom of my file cabinet when I was cleaning out things.  Thought you’d get a chuckle out of it. I would love to know what you’re up to these days.  If you have the time, please let me know.  

Cheers, Liz

What is Brendan up to? He is the Head of School of Belmont Day School in Belmont, MA where he masterfully uses that little piece of gold to remind young people that failure is not fatal. Indeed, he and I agree that a child who has not yet failed in our PreK-8 schools missed an opportunity to learn from the experience in the safe haven of our educational worlds. Dare I go so far to point out the obvious… you can lie to your teacher and still end up the Head of School someday.

“I was just too lazy.” 

“Lazy” came to be a catch-all word to describe a student who needed to try harder to conform to a standard definition of success. When I think of antonyms for lazy – industrious, efficient – learning sounds like industrial manufacturing, not the curious acquisition of new ideas. It is where we were in 1986…and sadly where some may still be.

As is true for many students, Brendan was anything but lazy. He did not attend to his homework that night. Turns out Brendan struggled to attend to more than a night of homework. Brendan had/has ADHD. 

Brendan: To see that genetic gift [of ADHD] being handed down to all three of my children and to watch learning differences play out in different ways for the three of them has me so fascinated by the prospect of how we can make universal the equivalent of a neuropsych or a WISC assessment. Which child out there would we say, now that’s a kid whose brain works the way we expect it to or the way it should? I just think neurodiversity is ubiquitous. And the only way we can effectively lead Pre K to 8 schools through it is if we start to get clearer profiles earlier and earlier of the way kids are wired.

This. The absolute weaving of leadership, learning differences and parenthood as envisioned masterfully by a neurodivergent mind that can attend to the entire problem and ascertain a possible solution – thank goodness he has ADHD.

Brendan is one of the most creative thinkers and leaders I have met. As we walk, I am so grateful to have stepped aside from school leadership, so I can really listen to his ideas. In the past I would be in this conversation listening with the filter of Wheeling Country Day School. How can I do this at our school? Are we failing children by not trying that? When is my next faculty meeting where I could ask that question? And so on. But on this Sunday morning, I have the space to listen.

Brendan: After an ESHA discussion on futuristic thinking by Leadership and Design, I asked my faculty, ‘What is the unsolvable, big, ugly, hairy problem that the world is facing that you want to see solved?’ They came back with poverty, climate change, women’s rights… big, big, big dilemmas. I challenged them, ‘So in 15 years, the 4 year olds who just walked through your door will be 19. They will be sophomores in college. And I’m assuming we want them working on the answer because they will be the ones who both live with the consequences of the answer, but also the ones who have the most pressing need to solve it. And if that’s true, then I need you and your teams to determine what the skills are that will be required to solve these problems.’ And not surprisingly, the skills that came back are both skills that everyone’s been talking about since Daniel Pink and Tony Wagner and all the rest of it. And I would suggest many of those skills belong to neurodivergent profiles, kids who think about attacking problems differently and who have scaffolded some of the structures by which they get there, but have the creativity of thinking and have the flexibility of thinking.

I love this. That is the purpose of education to envision and do our part to enact a better future. I see great power in the faculty working to co-create learning inspired by a man who has the neurodivergent creativity and plasticity to set up such a challenge. Brendan (Largay – reminding you of his last name in case you forgot as he did for his teacher in 7th grade) is the leader we need in schools. And I would encourage any head of school reading this to consider a similar activity with such a strong vision and genuine faculty agency. That fits my definition of education excellence. It also fits my definition of a private school with public purpose. We have the intimacy and flexibility to tackle such problems in this way, so we will. If not us, who?

I would venture to say that Brendan is motivated not only by his diagnosis, but also by the “genetic gift” of watching the diagnosis affect his children. 

Brendan: What I can remember most clearly about the dad part of it was just this feeling of like, I have unwittingly sort of set my kid on a really complicated and challenging and difficult path and there’s nothing I can do about it. And that’s incredibly hard. I don’t know if it’s the PTSD of it but I was watching colleagues try to educate my kids in the way that teachers tried to educate me and failed. But now I know better and the teachers are my colleagues. 

The medication conversation with my wife became really interesting too because she was certain they didn’t need meds. “We got this. It’s fine.” But I went back to that point when my parents very begrudgingly went down the Ritalin path for me. It changed my life. All of a sudden, the “Why are you so lazy?” conversation turned into, “Oh, you’re really smart.” We saw that happen with our kids.

One son fashions himself a political scientist. The 4 year old who threw a block at another child during an admission screening is now a superstar English student, loves history classes and never struggled a day in math. “That would not have necessarily been the path that we would have anticipated the morning of that screening.” When you are in the thick of it, it feels like an insurmountable mountain. The worry leaves an indelible mark, but time reveals a different narrative.

Parenting is not a sprint or a checklist. There is no end point. It is an epic love story. There are heroes and heroines, villains and dragons and parents cannot slay the latter nor claim to be the former. We have to take what is in front of us, validate the emotions, and then do the best we can to keep moving forward. Another challenge is coming. Of that we can be certain.

And so it was two days before Brendan and I walked. He learned that one of his children was struggling in school. The advisor was suggesting medication. Brendan was proud to relay they already had begun medication only to learn their child stopped taking it unbeknownst to mom and dad. I have been in that seat. Imagine the scene: School leader mom (or dad), almost-adult child, doctor “advisor” discussing solutions when the plot twist is revealed. “I stopped my medication.” The resulting action plays out in slow motion and the dialogue takes place in your own head as to your numerous parenting and leadership failures. Indeed, the ego is the enemy.

Brendan: At times it feels disingenuous if I’m being totally honest. There are times when I’m like, Damn, I can’t even figure out my own kids and somehow 339 of them have been entrusted to me. Yet, the very spirit of this conversation is what gets me excited about getting on the plane to come to ESHA in the throes of that situation… or to go back to my school because I feel like I’m fortunate to have the agency to actually be able to elevate this conversation a little bit in my community and within this community of PreK-8 leaders.

Just like that, Brendan moves from ego to purpose… the first lesson of Ryan Holiday’s Ego is the Enemy, Live with Purpose. This walk took place a few hours before we had the opportunity to meet Ryan Holiday at an ESHA retreat, but we were discussing the philosophy of stoicism without even knowing it. Holiday writes “…this moment is not your life. But it is a moment in your life. How will you use it?” and Brendan walks that walk as he elevates personal discomfort into purposeful work to be done.

Brendan then asks, “Do you think this job of independent school leadership is possible to scale? Can we do all the things that a parent is expecting for one child to be true for 339? Or 600? Or 10,000?” 

As I listen to our recorded conversation, I am sorry I answered him. I wish I had thrown it back to him and we had debated it more than we did. We would have landed on a much richer, more robust answer. I will have to learn from that in future walks. The comment, “here is a question for you” does not require an answer, only a response of “say more.” We discussed simplifying that big hairy question to a single conversation where a parent, child and special education expert discuss what is best for the child. Brendan likes that scenario, but suggests he would make introductions and leave the room to get out of the way. I urged him to stay and document the conversation. Pull out the threads, the patterns. Use it as an artifact for the universal assessment he sees on the horizon, or as a case study to coach the next generation of leaders. 

Brendan: That’s imposter syndrome 2.0. I’m in my ninth year and it’s time for me to be in that coaching capacity. There is a little bit of doubt as you make the slide into coaching spaces – who am I to tell you how to do it better? Despite the fact that I have learned a thing or two in nine years that may benefit others or know the questions to ask, but … who am I to coach anyone? 

Hearing him echo what the voice in my head has been saying is surprising. I’m glad I was listening. His question articulated the genesis of these walks. I was asking, who am I to coach anyone, but I was also abbreviating that to “Who am I?” Just as I am kicking around that voice of the imposter in my mind…

Brendan: Allow me to say I just did this very walk yesterday solo and was reflecting on the internal dialogue of how is the school actually doing? How am I doing? How is my family doing? And our walk allowed me to give voice to it…it is so simple and so necessary.

As I try to wrap up our conversation, Brendan sidesteps and asks, What is the next step for you? 

As I listen to the recording of his final question, I am unexpectedly captivated once again by the rhythmic soundtrack of feet and the powerful reminder that the most rewarding journeys often involve the simplest of steps.

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We’ve all been there. You’re on the sidelines of a soccer game or in line for a coffee, and someone asks, “How are you?” Without missing a beat, you reply, “I’m fine.” Really?!?  Fine? For many of us, it’s a placeholder, a default response that brushes past the complexities of our true feelings and experiences. 

On a walk with Joelle Moray, author of What Are We Doing?!: Radical Self-Care for the Hustle Culture, we dissected this notion of “fine,” revealing layers of vulnerability, curiosity, and the courage to be authentic.

In a world where social media offers up the highlight reel of everyone else’s life, admitting that things aren’t perfect is taboo. Personally, I pause when I am asked, “How are you?” A voice in my head whispers, “Reveal nothing.” I find it to be a throw-away question so it merits a throw-away answer, “Fine.”

You have to know that “fine” is my kryptonite. As a school leader, I was dismayed when a parent asked, “How was school?” and a child could only respond, “fine.” That signified failure. Did nothing noteworthy happen at school that a child wants to relate to mom or dad? I couldn’t control carpool conversations, but I encouraged parents to ask a more provocative question, such as

• If you could switch seats with anyone in your class, who would it be and why?
• If your teacher had a superpower, what do you think it would be?
• If you wrote a book about your day at school, what would you title it?
• What made you feel proud of yourself today?
• Who made you laugh today?
• What was the hardest thing you had to do today?

A child cannot respond, FINE, to any one of those.

In her practice as a mental performance coach and a nationally certified counselor, Joelle Moray is developing the art of asking better questions. Instead of settling for the usual “How are you?” she suggests we dig deeper. Questions like “What’s been the most positive part of your day?” or “What are you struggling with right now?” invite more meaningful responses. These questions show genuine interest and can lead to richer conversations. They allow people to express themselves beyond the confines of “fine.”

As we walked briskly and breathlessly, the notion of fine shrouded us with a momentary introspective silence.

Liz: Because every time your answer is, “I’m fine.” You chip away a little bit at your growth. For me it feels like a lie.

Joelle: You do. And you also stifle the relationship with the person asking you the question.

Liz: And maybe even your own voice.

Joelle: Yeah. (long pause) And stifle your own voice.

When Joelle asks, How are you? Someone might mention a sliver of the truth: a sore back, a minor inconvenience, the illness of a parent, but her experience tells her there is more to the story. She acknowledges the opening and compassionately settles into those responses. It is easy to rush past a response, but attending to it deepens the experience and possible results for both parties. 

In her presentations for corporate wellness, she reminds her audience that often we hide behind the word “fine” to avoid digging into the real issues. She shares the following image:

It’s easier to say we’re okay than to confront the chaos on our metaphorical desks. Joelle asks her audience to consider the image from two perspectives: as the person asking the question trying to elicit meaningful and helpful dialogue, but also as the woman sitting on the floor. How does that woman respond? She is not fine. At this moment she is barely holding it together. 

Joelle suggests we respond with “ing” words. She offers substitutes for the mask of “fine” …

• I’m pausing right now. 
• I’m growing right now. 
• I’m learning right now. 
• I’m celebrating right now. 
• I’m changing right now 

The list goes on, but each one is better than “I’m fine.” Joelle likes the approach of using “some kind of ING word, the kind of word that has movement that indicates something’s happening.” As a former English teacher, I must admit the gerund is a powerful weapon. ING possesses the extraordinary ability to transform any action verb into a powerful noun, yet maintaining the essence of both verb and noun simultaneously. “I’m pausing right now” feels much more honest than “I’m fine” if I were to reflect on the exchange with someone. I can share more about the pause if I choose to be vulnerable without feeling inauthentic or triggering any imposter syndrome tendencies.

A Platform of Curiosity

These responses also spark curiosity. They offer permission to accept your feelings and your failures and your worries… all of it. Joelle’s platform on mental wellness is all about curiosity. She uses curiosity to get to know her clients and encourages it for us to get to know ourselves. Instead of feeling defensive, embrace curiosity. Why did that question trigger me? Did I assume someone was judging me? Is their judgment more of a reflection on them than it is on me? 

Even when someone raises a difficult question during a presentation, she pivots to curiosity. When asked about something for which she is uncertain, she responds, “This is a great place for curiosity.”  The mindset not only diffuses potential conflict but also models a healthy approach to disagreements or self-doubt. It’s a reminder that we don’t have to have all the answers, and that’s okay. It takes perfectionism out of the game.

Ultimately, we need to be present and patient.  By asking thoughtful questions, and embracing curiosity, we can drop the “fine” mask. We cannot rush through connections with others or ourselves. 

The Patience to be a Mother

As adoptive parents, Joelle and I share a bond. The thread of our experience is a lesson in patience. Four years into motherhood Joelle guesses that she has a different perspective than other moms. “I hope I’m a little more patient. I’m more curious. I see the fragility of life and the rarity of parenthood very differently. It’s a privilege to get to teach someone how to be a human being. It is a huge privilege.” 

We both acknowledge that patience is hard when you make the decision to adopt. The road to that moment has been long enough with challenges and loss and now you’re asked to be patient. Yet that is the very lesson that Joelle and I agree our children taught us: patience.

Joelle and Stefan became parents through foster care in West Virginia. After the application process and home study, they were “open” to get calls about a child. It’s a tricky situation for someone who is not feeling patient as you are presented with the situation of whatever’s happening with a particular child or children. 

Joelle: You need to understand that you can say yes or no. And at first, I was afraid to say no because I thought we would be blacklisted or put to the end of the line or whatever, and that’s just not how it works. They want you to say no if this child is not the right fit for you and your family. Because if not, they don’t want to have to remove the child again. That’s much more traumatizing to the child. 

Yet it is not as easy as yes or no. Joelle recounts multiple stories of saying yes but the child was placed somewhere else. The gift of time allows each instance to be remembered as bumps in the road, but as an adoptive mother myself I know how each YES arrived full of hope and preparation and each loss triggered disappointment and despair.

In January the Morays thought 2020 was their year. Instead the pandemic shut down the courts and their process was derailed…until August when they got a call that there was a baby boy who had just been born with neonatal abstinence syndrome from in utero drug exposure. Their YES was met with a clear harbinger that the goal was reunification.  While there was visitation with the birth family for a few months, the baby and birth mother were never officially reunified. At ten months, the birth family relinquished their rights and her son was eligible for adoption, which wasn’t finalized until he was about 15 months old. 

Those are facts. Dates and agreements that feel contractual. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you have to have lived the experience of adoption to feel what it is like to walk through days holding your breath. The sense of possible loss becomes palpable, but for the Morays they had more than their hope to take care of.

On October 8, in the midst of newly navigating the journey of fostering their son, an OB GYN reached out to share that a patient was choosing adoption. Days later, Joelle was in the room when her daughter was born. Her son was only ten weeks old.

No adoption is “guaranteed.” A child has to live with you for six months before it is legally finalized. In this case, however, Joelle had met the birth mother and knew reunification was unlikely. Joelle remembered, “I made a promise to her. She feels that I can do this better than she could. And that’s a responsibility. That’s a great responsibility.” Ultimately, adoption is a promise made to provide the best life possible for a child, acknowledging the trust and hope extended by another mother.

Liz: I would say that the conversation about that promise to another mother lives on the horizon and keeps you in a different mindset as a parent. There’s a day in the future that you need to help your daughter understand adoption and realize there’s more than you…talk about humbling, talk about vulnerable.

Joelle: My daughter’s about to be four, and there’s a teacher at school who’s pregnant. And so now we have it – the questions. Is there a baby in her belly? Yeah. When I grow up, can I have a baby in my belly? Was there ever a baby in your belly? Whose belly was I in? …now it’s here.

Liz: That here moment for me came when Ella, who always knew she was born of my heart not my belly, asked, Do I have siblings? Before my mind could form a response, I realized Grace was crying. 

Joelle: Dang.

Liz: These are the things. There’s no manual, right?  

There was a montage playing out in my mind. I could see a day when Ella meets her biological siblings and Grace is standing alone… a surviving twin surviving another loss. That moment only happened in my mind. The narrative has yet to play itself out over a decade later, but it is there. It lies in wait for any adoptive mother. Maybe that is why we find ourselves trying to be more patient. To live in the moment in front of us instead of ruminating on a possible situation on the horizon.

So what does Joelle hope her children will say about their mother someday?

Joelle: My mom is smart, funny, ambitious, a good cook, likes to dance in the kitchen. You know, I hope they say… Patient. They probably won’t say that.

Liz: Maybe they’ll be good at the ING words.

Joelle: Yeah, right. She’s practicing patience.

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Ask me about Barb Buchwach and I will begin a story that spans 40 years. Sharing the responsibilities of dorm mother gave us a lifelong bond. Although she has a large loving family of her own, she welcomed me as a sister. In every life decision I faced, she would toast me a bagel then smother it with onion, tomato and cheese and make it feel like home. Barb has that gift of making every person she meets feel like her day was made for the moment she spends with you. You will walk away with a feeling of being loved unconditionally and most likely a slice of banana bread or a container of soup. I could list all of the challenges we faced, but they’re less important now, fading farther into background noise every day. What remains salient are the smaller moments mostly set in Barb’s kitchen. There I have cried a thousand tears, laughed until my ribs ached, and been embraced by unconditional love. 

She was one of the first people I wanted to walk with. I almost abandoned this project before it began, but tapping into Barb’s wisdom was worth taking the first steps. She had offered counsel and comfort to so many people, who better to guide me. I listened to our recording many times before taking to the computer to document it. I know I will listen to it again and again. I laugh at her tone and first words every time. Ironically, it began far differently than expected…

Barb Let’s get this walk over with, dammit. 

Liz Well ok then. First of all, your hair looks fantastic. Does that mean you haven’t done chemo in a while?

Barb My lung nodules grew a little bit, but they’re still very small. [The doctor] wants my body to have a break because I had a long chemo session. I mean, I did chemo for 15 months straight. Most people get six months. Damn. That’s why my hair is fuller ‘cause I told her I don’t feel great a lot. My muscles are so sore. Blah, blah, blah.

Doc said, “First of all, you have to remember you have pancreatic cancer.” 

I go, ‘“Really?” 

And then she said, “And you had a lot of chemo, and you had radiation, and you just had surgery on Monday.” 

I go, “Oh, so this is normal, to feel like this?” 

So I have my hair …until I start the chemo again.

While Barb attributes her strength in battling pancreatic cancer to her community of family and friends, she also blames the stress in her life for its occurrence. 

Barb I did this to myself. I just never seemed to be able to get it all together on my own. I want to be the best at all I do as a mother, as a worker, with my house, … I just couldn’t get it all done, so what I hadn’t done would stay in my mind all the time and cause me stress. Add to that I was in sales for 22 years, and anytime you’re in sales, it’s stressful.

If I could go back 22 years, I would probably tell myself to think of me, and think of it as my job to take care of this body, this life. I always put myself last because I could, and then I just ran out of time. It’s not that I didn’t want to take care of myself. I just ran out of time. And the other things, to me, were more important.

Liz  When you say you ran out of time, you mean you thought you’d get to you, you’d take care of everybody else, and then you’d get to yourself?

Barb Yeah. And I just didn’t. So I didn’t get that walk in, I didn’t go get a massage once a month, and I didn’t make myself something extra healthy to eat because I’d run out of time in the day. And so if I had to guess, I would say it was all that. 

We walk in silence for a little bit. I don’t pretend to know what we are all rushing toward, but I know we have made time our enemy until we realize its finite… until that’s palpable. Our pace is slow. Unlike other walks, we aren’t exercising, we are just putting one foot in front of the other. The fall air and the warm sun seem the perfect background to steal this time together.

Barb And maybe that’s why I’m doing well, because it’s the first time in my life I’ve had no stress, and I have everything I wanted. I don’t know, everything’s just working out now, and I don’t have stress, and I think that’s really helping me. I just love my kids, my house, my family, my friends. 

Liz Isn’t it amazing? It takes a pancreatic cancer diagnosis to get you to the point that you say, “I have all that I wanted.”

While we both burst into momentary laughter at the irony, she offers some of the most profound advice I have received thus far. She reminds me that I cannot let disappointment define me. When any one of us are “in it,” we feel like it is the end of the world. It’s not. The thing that happened is not what is important in our lives. It is the way we get through it that affects our body, our mind and our heart. Somehow we have to get ourselves into a space of believing that I am where I am supposed to be. There’s always solutions. 

Barb You have to take ego out of it because ego is you thinking about you. You think you’re the cause… you feel like you could have made a difference if you’d have done something right. It’s your ego that says you’re good enough or not. I think you have to let that go and know that there is a higher power, whatever that may be. So let it happen. The key is that no matter what you do, you need to have a passion for it and ego begins to fall away. 

We both realize we have had experiences in our lives when we were truly focused without ego. The majority of those moments are when our children suffered. Life can bring you to your knees when you’re a mother. Without knowing from where you draw your strength, you stand and place one foot in front of the other. Barb jokes that sometimes strength comes from Xanax, but we know it comes from our community of love.

Barb I didn’t always handle the big things well. I let them affect my stomach. I remember plain as day Danny, (her oldest), was twelve. So that means Leah was only six. And Danny was so sick that he ended up in the hospital. And my fears were he had some really bad disease or something wrong. And immediately I was sick too. It was total fear. I couldn’t take care of my two kids that were at home. And you came and you took care of them.

Liz  I guess I’ve never said this to you, but what I saw was a woman who stepped up completely for her child, so much so that you needed a break and were brave enough to let someone else step in… instead of trying to do it all. I always think of that time as an example of your strength. 

Isn’t that part of community? It’s not just giving. It’s also receiving.

Barb And most people, if they love you, they want to do something for you and they aren’t really sure what to do. So I’ve gotten better with that. I’ll ask people. I called Jeanne today and asked her if she was going to Kroger, and she was. Heck, Matt and Big Dan volunteered to take Mac to the vet. 

I’ve always cherished my friendships and my family. And over the years, when I’m good, I would do anything for someone else. Which is a lot easier than letting someone do it for you, but now I’m getting good with it. I say, sure, yeah, I’ll take that, or, sure, you can do that for me. But I still have it in me that I think, what can I do back for them?

We randomly walk through a variety of topics as we near the end of the sidewalk… FMLA, IVF, QVC… and she tucks in a sampling of other insights that could each be the topic for a later walk:

• Show up. You don’t have to bring anything. Just you. And if you can’t get there, write.
• When you have the energy, take advantage of it.
• The more you go through in your life, the stronger you are …and then you realize, this is life. 
• There is no fairy tale and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason. 
• We have to be willing to tell our stories. Others may judge, but that cannot be our worry.

Unlike others I will walk with, I handed Barb the magic wand – even if there are no fairy tales – and asked her to chart the course for my life ahead. She told me to make other Liz Hofreuters. The irony in that takes my breath away – I have too often worried that my girls would end up like me. She reminded me… as only a lifelong friend can do, especially one that is facing pancreatic cancer head on …that I was strong… the collateral beauty of the challenges I have faced. I needed to take advantage of that. She urged me to choose a path full of work that I not only love, but one that leaves me time to travel and visit with Grace…to go to Ella’s things and be involved in her life as much as a 16 year old will allow. To sit with her, my friend Barb. She nudged me and whispered almost inauduibly, “You need that time because that’s who you are and you don’t want to regret that.” 

Naturally, she sends me off with a container of soup.

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Embarking on a life change can be exhilarating, daunting, and full of uncertainty. Seeking deeper purpose and a new challenge, I made a professional decision to step aside from school leadership. 

Now, here I am at an unplanned crossroads.

Countless individuals have walked my path with me. Personally and professionally we have navigated obstacles and gained hard-won wisdom. 

While I’m not sure yet what path I will choose on this road diverged, I figured the best way to decide is to start walking.  I’ve set out to capture the stories and insights of those who have journeyed with me. I am asking them to walk with me yet again…quite literally. Through informal interviews and candid reflections, “Walk with Me” aims to document the real-life experiences of friends and mentors – from the pivotal moments, to the challenges they overcame, to the advice they have for others.

This collection of first-hand accounts of our walks will provide a roadmap of the trials and triumphs of leadership, learning differences and motherhood – the essential trilogy of my last two decades. 

I embarked on this journey with the mindset to learn something new and the goal to nurture a culture of trust and vulnerability. There is so much to learn from one another.

So read on, and let their voices inspire, empower, and guide you as they have me.