My Dearest Friends (L to R) Claudia, Judy, Mike, and Me. Image Art by Joey
Life has a way of getting our attention.
Lately, it has been reminding me just how fragile, precious, and unpredictable our time here really is.
In recent months, I've lost both a cousin and an uncle. I've watched my aunt's dementia progress. One of my closest and dearest friends, who has also been a spiritual mentor to me, has entered hospice care.
And all around me, people I love and care about deeply are navigating losses of their own.
Some are grieving the death of someone they loved deeply. Others are grieving things that don't come with funerals or sympathy cards. Careers that ended unexpectedly. Dreams that dissolved. Relationships that changed. Futures they had imagined so clearly, only to discover that life had something entirely different in mind.
Grief, I'm learning, wears many faces.
Sometimes it arrives with a phone call. Sometimes it creeps in quietly, as we watch someone we love slowly disappear into dementia. Sometimes it comes when we realize that the life we thought we were building is no longer the life we're living.
And sometimes grief arrives before the loss itself, as we begin saying goodbye to someone who is still here.
All of this has changed me.
Not in some dramatic, lightning-bolt sort of way. Rather, it's been a gradual awakening to something I've always known intellectually but am only now beginning to understand in my bones.
We cannot take a single moment for granted.
When I retired earlier this year, I knew I was stepping into a new chapter. I imagined more freedom, more travel, more writing, and more opportunities to explore the things that make my soul sing.
I still want all of those things.
But something deeper has emerged. I'm beginning to understand that my purpose in this season of life isn't simply to do more of what I love. It's to be more fully present for the people I love.
To show up. To listen. To sit beside someone when there are no words. To make the phone call. To take the trip. To say the thing that needs saying while there's still time to say it.
There is no more time for casual self-abandonment. No more putting off the life I want to live or the love I want to give because something else seems more urgent.
The time is now.
An Expanding Circle of Care
These experiences have also been quietly reshaping my work as a health and life coach.
When I began Coaching with Dani, much of my focus was on helping people simplify their lives, reconnect with themselves, and create more space for what matters. Those principles remain at the heart of everything I do.
But life has a way of expanding our understanding of what people truly need.
Over the years, I've worked with people navigating burnout, major life transitions, changing relationships, uncertainty, and the sometimes frightening experience of beginning again. Increasingly, I've found myself accompanying people through grief and loss, too.
And I've come to recognize that these experiences are deeply connected.
When we lose someone we love, we don't just lose their physical presence. We lose the ordinary moments we shared, the conversations we expected to have, and a future we imagined together.
When we lose a career, a relationship, or a long-held dream, we may also lose a piece of our identity. We find ourselves standing in that uncomfortable space between who we were and who we are becoming.
It's a place I know well.
And it's a place where compassionate companionship can make a meaningful difference.
That's why I'm expanding my coaching practice to include Grief & Life After Loss, offering virtual coaching for people navigating bereavement, significant life changes, and the uncertain territory of what comes next.
This isn't about fixing grief, rushing healing, or finding a silver lining in something painful. Grief isn't a problem to solve. It's an experience to be honored.
My role is to offer a supportive space where people can explore what they're feeling, reconnect with their own wisdom, and gradually discover how to carry both their loss and their life forward.
I'm also making Coaching with Dani more accessible through Thumbtack, where people seeking support with relationships, personal growth, life transitions, and other challenges can find and connect with me.
These aren't departures from my original vision. They're a natural evolution of it. Because living simply was never really about having fewer things. It was always about making more room for what matters.
And what matters most, I've come to believe, is how we care for ourselves and one another while we're still here.
Simplicity Living Practice: While There’s Still Time
This week, I'd like to invite you to consider something.
What if we stopped treating the people we love, and the lives we're living, as though they'll always be there tomorrow?
Not from a place of fear or urgency, but from a place of gratitude and intention.
Choose one person who matters deeply to you. Someone you've been meaning to call, visit, thank, or simply spend more time with.
And reach out.
Not because it's their birthday. Not because it's a holiday. Not because you need anything.
Simply because they're here. And so are you.
Then take a few quiet moments to reflect on three questions:
Who or what have I been taking for granted?
Where have I been postponing my own happiness, needs, or dreams?
What would living more fully look like for me, beginning today?
You don't need to make a grand gesture or overhaul your entire life.
Sometimes living fully looks like an unhurried conversation over tea. A walk in the woods. Holding someone's hand. Saying "I love you" without waiting for the perfect moment.
Sometimes it means finally choosing yourself.
And sometimes it means simply being there.
Sage Wisdom
I've been thinking a lot about the difference between having time and being present.
Retirement has given me the extraordinary gift of more freedom over how I spend my days. But loss has given me something perhaps even more valuable: a clearer understanding of why those days matter.
I don't want to arrive at the end of my life with a long list of things I meant to do, people I meant to visit, or words I meant to say.
I want to know that I showed up.
That I loved generously. That I made room for joy, even alongside sorrow. That I didn't abandon myself in the process of caring for others. That I had the courage to begin again when life asked me to.
And that I was present for the beautiful, ordinary, fleeting miracle of being alive.
We cannot protect ourselves or the people we love from every loss. We cannot know how much time we have together.
But we can choose how we spend the time we're given.
We can be kinder. More attentive. More courageous. More willing to love without holding back.
And perhaps that's what living simply has been teaching me all along.
Not how to have less.
But how to be here, fully and completely, for the life that's happening right now.
While we are still here.
If you're navigating grief, loss, or a significant life transition, I'd be honored to walk alongside you. Learn more about Grief & Life After Loss and my other coaching services at Coaching with Dani, or schedule a complimentary conversation to explore how we might work together.