My Black is NOT Cracking.

There comes a point in life when you realize you’re attending more funerals than birthday parties. (Well, not me, but most.) For me, it’s scrolling through phone contacts and realizing how many of them are gone.

It’s not something anyone warns you about when you’re young.

When you’re twenty-five, your social calendar is weddings, baby showers, and birthday celebrations. Every gathering feels like the beginning of something. Then one day, seemingly without notice, the invitations change. Funeral homes replace banquet halls. Sympathy cards replace birthday cards. The conversations become less about what people are planning and more about what they’ve survived.

Lately, it feels like loss is everywhere. I missed a dinner with a friend a while back because we both forgot. Why?  Because we both suffered another loss. 

Friends lose parents. Parents lose children. Neighbors disappear from their front porches. A familiar face from high school shows up in an online obituary. Someone you spoke to just last month is suddenly gone.

I certainly have no plans to leave this earthly carnival anytime soon. I have books to read, places to go, desserts to eat, and far too many unfinished projects sitting on my desktop. But aging has a way of forcing us to acknowledge a reality we spent decades avoiding. Someone is eventually going to be the last one standing and it’s a sobering thought.

Many Summer evenings I walk past this nursing home on the river and see residents sitting quietly on the porch. Some stare at the trees. Some watch cars go by. Some sit alone.

And I wonder.

Did they once have a huge circle of friends?

Did they spend Friday nights laughing around kitchen tables?

Did they have a spouse who sat beside them for fifty years?

Have all of those people passed on?

Or perhaps even harder to imagine, are they still alive and just don’t visit?

I don’t know their stories. But I know enough about life now to understand that loneliness is not reserved for people who never had love. Sometimes it belongs to people who had so much love that they eventually outlived it.

That realization carries its own kind of grief. Because frequent loss is stressful and common as we age. It’s not simply “part of getting older.”

Each loss asks your nervous system to adapt to a world that suddenly looks different than it did yesterday.

A friend who always answered the phone is gone. Your sibling who knew your childhood stories is gone. The spouse who witnessed your entire adult life is gone.

Piece by piece, parts of your history disappear.

Psychologists sometimes refer to this accumulation as cumulative grief. Unlike a single traumatic event, it’s a series of smaller heartbreaks that stack on top of one another over time. And while loss may be inevitable, suffering through it alone doesn’t have to be.

So how do we cope?

First, we stop pretending that grief has an expiration date. The culture loves a timeline.

Three bereavement days from work. A few weeks to “process.” A handful of ugly casseroles delivered to your door. Then everyone expects you to resume normal programming. But grief doesn’t work like that. Love leaves fingerprints. The bigger the love, the longer the fingerprints remain.

Second, Invest in relationships while we’re still here. The best defense against becoming isolated later is connection now. Today, call someone. Visit someone. Invite someone to lunch. Sit on the porch with someone. One day, that simple act of connection may become one of the most meaningful gifts either of you ever receives. Because one day you’ll either be grateful you made the effort or wish you had.

Third, we need to support our bodies, not just our emotions. Grief lives in the body. You can feel it in your chest, your stomach, your muscles, your sleep patterns, and your immune system. Grief recently snuck up on me in the produce aisle at Mom’s Organic and straight sucker-punched me in the gut! Four years and I’m holding a carrot reliving that phone call no one ever wants to receive!

This is one reason I’ve become interested in exploring complementary approaches that support the nervous system during stressful periods.

Two areas I’m currently investigating are acupuncture and essential oils.

Acupuncture has been studied for its ability to help regulate the body’s stress response, reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and encourage relaxation. While it can’t remove grief, some people find it helps create enough calm in the body to better navigate difficult emotions. I plan on getting some treatments over the summer. I witnessed first hand how it helped my daughter. My turn!

Essential oils are another tool many people use for emotional support. Scents such as lavender, frankincense, bergamot, and rose are often associated with relaxation, grounding, and emotional comfort. Again, they’re not a cure for grief. Nothing is. But creating small rituals of care can matter when life feels heavy.

Maybe that’s the lesson aging keeps trying to teach us. We cannot prevent loss. We cannot negotiate with time. We cannot keep everyone we love. But we can learn how to care for ourselves through the seasons of grief.

We can strengthen our communities. We can remain open to joy even while carrying sadness. And perhaps most importantly, we can continue showing up for one another. Because while one of us may eventually become the last one standing, none of us should have to feel alone while we’re still here.

Below are links to products I am currently using and if you are in the NYC area, an acupuncturist I highly recommend! (He’s worth the trip from South Jersey/Philly)

https://vibrantblueoils.com/why-essential-oils-are-the-best-for-grief/

Coupon Code: MBINC

Barry is one of the most calming souls I have ever encountered. Just speaking to him lowers your blood pressure!

https://findingbalanceclinic.com/working-with-nyc-acupuncturist-barry-danielian/about/