Someone Has to Go First
On the Conversation You've Been Putting Off
Most of us don't see it coming. You're sitting across from your mom or dad at the kitchen table, or riding somewhere together with the radio doing most of the talking, or just watching them move through a room they've lived in for years — and something catches you. Maybe it's the way they reached for the counter without thinking about it. Maybe it's a name that took a little longer to find than it used to. Maybe it's nothing you could even point to, just a quiet feeling that settles in your chest somewhere between dinner and dessert.
And most of us do the same thing with that feeling. We set it aside. We let the moment pass. We tell ourselves there's still time, that today is a good day, that bringing it up would just make things heavy when they don't need to be.
But that feeling doesn't really go away, does it. It just waits. And somewhere underneath the waiting, love is already asking the question you haven't figured out how to say yet.
Most of us keep putting it off for reasons that make complete sense when you're living inside them. We don't want to seem like we're rushing anything, or that we've already started thinking about what comes after. So we stay quiet because quiet feels kinder, even when it isn't. We tell ourselves they've earned the right to not have to think about hard things, that they're doing fine and we should just let them be fine.
But here's something I've learned from years of sitting with families in the middle of their hardest moments. Most parents have already thought about it. Many of them have been waiting for someone to open the door. They just didn't want to be the one to bring it up and worry you, so they've been carrying it quietly the same way you have, each of you waiting for the other one to go first.
And then there's the reason most of us admit last, if we admit it at all. We don't want to have the conversation because having it means we have to look directly at something we've been keeping in the corner of the room. Starting the conversation makes it real in a way that the quiet feeling in your chest at the kitchen table does not.
So the conversation waits. And if we're honest, we're not entirely sure which one is doing the waiting — the love or the fear. Most of the time they're sitting in the same chair. I've been in rooms on both sides of this conversation. Rooms where it happened in time, and rooms where it didn't.
When it didn't, grief arrives with a companion nobody invited. The casseroles come, the flowers arrive, the people fill the house — and somewhere in the middle of all of it someone has to start asking questions that feel impossibly practical for a moment that is so deeply human. Is there anything in place? Where is the paperwork? What did they want? Those questions don't come from greed or impatience. They come from love trying to keep moving when it doesn't know what to do with itself. But they are heavy questions to carry in an already heavy room.
When it did happen in time, something is different. Grief is still there — love always makes it heavy, and nothing changes that. But there is a little more breathing room. A little more space to just be sad without also having to be frantic. I have watched families in those rooms too, and what I notice is not the absence of pain but the absence of panic. Someone thought ahead. Someone had the conversation. And now, in the hardest moment, that quiet act of love is still speaking.
The difference between those two rooms is almost always that hard conversations either happened or they didn't. The conversation that wasn't easy to begin actually was begun, and decisions, desires, and wishes were shared.
So if you've been carrying that quiet feeling around, the one that showed up at the kitchen table or in the car or just watching your parent move through a room — maybe it's time to stop waiting for the perfect moment, because the perfect moment is not coming. What is coming, eventually, is the moment when the conversation can no longer happen at all.
You don't have to have all the answers before you begin.
You don't need a folder full of documents or a checklist or a plan already in place. You just need a way in. And sometimes the simplest way in is also the most honest one. Something like: I've been thinking about you, and I want to make sure we've talked about some things while we have the chance. Not because I'm worried, but because I love you and I want to get this right.
That's enough to open the door. The rest of the conversation will find its own way.
And if somewhere along the way you'd like some help thinking through the practical side of things — the financial piece that love sometimes needs in order to do its job — I'm always here for that conversation too. No pressure. No script. Just two people talking about taking care of the ones we love while we still can.
Because here's what I know after years of standing with families in their hardest moments. The conversation you're afraid to start is very often the one your parent has been hoping someone would begin.
Love just needed one of you to go first.
I would like to file a complaint with my body. Nothing formal, and I don’t think we need attorneys involved, but there are a few things we should discuss. For starters, I would appreciate knowing what kind of day we’re going to have before I make plans. Some mornings, I feel ready. Let’s ride the bike, let’s get to the gym, let’s do the things that help me feel like myself. Other mornings, my body apparently held a meeting overnight and voted against all of that, and I was not consulted. I live with Sjögren’s , and part of living with it, for me, is trying to explain something that people can’t necessarily see. There is the dry mouth, the aching, the heaviness and fatigue. Sometimes my legs feel exhausted before I’ve asked them to do anything. And then there are days when the fatigue seems to settle over everything, making even ordinary things feel like they take more effort than they should. The ache I feel is different from the soreness after a good workout. I actually like knowing I’ve worked my muscles; there’s something satisfying about that. This ache doesn’t come with that satisfaction. It just shows up, and I’ll be honest: I get frustrated. Some days the fatigue reaches my brain, too. It’s as though my mind is worn out before I’ve really begun, and even things I want to do take more effort than they should. I might have plans, something I’m looking forward to or a task I want to get done, but finding the mental energy to work through it feels harder than it ought to. It’s frustrating when your body feels tired, but it’s another kind of frustration when your brain seems to have joined the overnight meeting and voted against you, too. I have worked hard to get back to the gym, to get back on the bike, to find some rhythm again. These things matter to me. They give shape to my days and help me feel stronger, more hopeful, and more at home in my own skin. Not long ago, I went out for a ride planning to do about ten miles. When I got five or six miles out, I knew I could turn around and head home. But I felt good, so I kept going. I even thought about stretching the ride out a little more. Then I decided, " I feel good. Let’s leave it at that. " That might not sound like a big moment. But for me, it was. I was out on my bike, enjoying the ride, and feeling like myself again. So when my body interrupts those plans, it can feel as though something bigger than a workout has been taken away. Sometimes I miss the ease of doing something without first negotiating with myself about whether I have the energy—physical or mental—to do it. I miss being able to trust that my body and my brain will show up for the day I had planned. Sometimes I want to say, “ Can we please just have a normal day? ” Whatever normal means. There is a line in Psalm 139:14 that says we are “ fearfully and wonderfully made .” I have probably spoken those words more easily over other people than I have believed them about myself on a difficult morning. Wonderfully made? Even this body? Even when it aches, even when it needs another break, even when it won’t cooperate with the perfectly reasonable agenda I’ve prepared? Apparently, yes. I’m still working on that. It’s easier for me to appreciate my body when it does what I want, when I finish a ride feeling good or leave the gym pleased with what I accomplished. On those days, gratitude comes pretty naturally. On the harder days, I have to sit with a question I would rather avoid: Can I treat this body with kindness when I’m disappointed in it? Can I listen without turning every limitation into an accusation? Because I can be hard on myself. Somewhere along the way, “I wanted to do more today ” can become “ I should have done more today, ” and then rest starts to feel like something I need to defend. I don’t have a tidy spiritual explanation for Sjögren’s . I’m not going to pretend I’m grateful for every ache, or that every difficult day comes with a lesson worth the price of admission. Some days, I would happily skip the lesson. But I do believe God is present in this life I’m actually living, including the parts I keep hoping will change. That means there is room for my frustration in prayer, and room for hope, too. I can want to feel better. I can keep looking for things that help. I can celebrate a good ride without requiring it to prove that all the difficult days are behind me. And when I need to stop, I can practice believing that nothing essential about my worth has changed. God does not need my workout summary. Although, after a particularly good ride, I may mention the mileage. Gratitude comes easily when I come home from a good ride, pleased with what my body could do. I would choose that moment every time. But maybe the Unlikely Alta r is the other moment: the morning I change my plans because Sjögren’s has other plans for me, and I find a way to give thanks anyway. Not for the ache. I meant what I said about that. But in the middle of it, trusting that God is not just watching from a distance, but actively at work in the canceled ride as surely as in the finished one. That kind of gratitude doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m learning there is room for it on both kinds of days. I’m still riding, still showing up at the gym, still hoping for more good days, and still learning how to live with the days I wouldn’t have chosen. If you’re living in a body that has other plans, I hope you have people who believe you when you tell them what it feels like. I hope you find things that help. And when you have done what you can for the day, may you be able to rest without putting yourself on trial. May I learn to do that, too.
Someday after I die, my sons are going to have to go through my stuff, and I have to admit that I find this thought both amusing and a little terrifying. Not because I'm hiding anything particularly scandalous, or at least nothing they'll be able to prove, but because I know how much stuff I've accumulated over the years that makes perfect sense to me and will make absolutely no sense to them. I can already picture it. One of them will open a drawer, pull out some completely inexplicable object and ask the other, “Do you have any idea why Dad kept this?” The answer will almost certainly be no. Eventually somebody will say, “We probably shouldn't throw it away,” and into a box it will go. That box will be labeled DAD'S STUFF and moved from closet to closet for the next twenty years because apparently one of the things we inherit from the people we love is the inability to throw away their weird crap. That's funny when we're talking about old ticket stubs, charging cables, or whatever other treasures my children someday discover. It becomes considerably less funny when the thing they're trying to find is an insurance policy, a bank account, an important password or the answer to a very simple question: What did Dad want us to do? I've spent enough time around death to know that dying leaves behind more than grief. It leaves behind an astonishing amount of administrative work, and unfortunately the electric company, Netflix and the HOA don't receive some cosmic notification that says, “Marty died Tuesday, please stop sending him bills.” The financial machinery of a person's life keeps humming along until somebody who is very much alive starts shutting it down. That's something we don't talk about much when we talk about “final expenses.” We usually mean the funeral, and certainly that's part of it, but the funeral isn't the only bill that survives us. There is a strange stretch of time between someone's death and the moment their financial life finally comes to rest, and somebody has to live through that stretch. Usually, that somebody is a person who loved us, and they're doing all of this while grieving. They may be planning a funeral while trying to figure out whether the mortgage has been paid, which bills are automatically drafted, how long the electricity needs to stay on and what accounts need to be closed. Someone may have to miss work or travel. There may be a car to sell, subscriptions to cancel or a dog that suddenly needs somewhere to live. I've seen enough grief to know what it can do to an otherwise perfectly capable person. People forget things. They read the same piece of paper three times and still aren't sure what it says. They can make a dozen decisions at the funeral home and then become completely overwhelmed deciding what everybody should eat for dinner. Yet right in the middle of all that, we sometimes leave them a scavenger hunt. Where's the will? Did Mom have insurance? Who's the beneficiary? Where does Dad bank? What's the password? And eventually, “ Why in God's name was he still paying $14.99 a month for this?” The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether planning for our death is less about having everything perfectly arranged and more about simply leaving fewer questions. Most of us aren't going to leave behind a beautifully organized binder with labeled tabs containing everything our family could possibly need. If you have one of those, congratulations. I admire you and also find you slightly suspicious. The rest of us can at least tell someone where the important things are, what we've already arranged and what we want done. And if we have life insurance, perhaps we should make sure the person we've named as beneficiary actually knows the policy exists. That's also why I've started thinking differently about final expense insurance. Yes, it can provide money for a funeral or cremation, but it can also provide something less obvious: a little financial breathing room during that strange period when someone is grieving you while simultaneously trying to wind down the life you left behind. It isn't supposed to turn someone's death into a payday, nor does everybody need a huge policy. It’s simply money that’s there when the person you chose as your beneficiary needs it, without you having to predict which expense is going to arrive first. Maybe “final expense” is actually a misleading name because death doesn't come with one final expense neatly printed at the bottom of a receipt. It comes with bills, responsibilities, decisions and questions, and eventually the people who love us have to sort through all of them. Someday my sons really will go through my stuff. They'll throw some of it away, keep some of it and probably find a few things that make them wonder what exactly was wrong with their father. I hope they laugh. I hope they find things that bring back stories and, for a moment, bring me back into the room with them. But here's what I don't want. I don't want what I leave behind to become something they have to carry. I can't spare them the grief of losing their father someday. There isn't an insurance policy in the world that can do that. But I can leave fewer questions, make a few decisions now instead of leaving those decisions to them and provide some financial breathing room for whatever that day brings. Maybe that's what a loving legacy looks like. We can't make death easy for the people we love, but we can try to make what comes after it a little easier. Because death doesn't cancel autopay. But love can plan ahead.
I went to see the new Spider-Man movie, got myself tangled up in thoughts about webs, connection, and our rather inconvenient need for other people, and decided I had found the Unlikely Altar . I even wrote about it in my last blog, Trust the Web . I figured I was done with Spider-Man . But I guess Spider-Man wasn't done with me. One day as I was driving home from a funeral home, I heard something that made me think about the movie all over again. I was listening to a podcast, The Big Picture, and one of the hosts, Amanda , said something almost in passing. She said the real villain of the Spider-Man movie was loneliness . The other hosts didn't really acknowledge it and the conversation moved on. But I couldn't shake it. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if she had seen something hiding in plain sight; something that I might have missed. The trailer tells us that Spider-Man is up against " a powerful villain no one can even see. " Maybe that's not just a clue about the movie's mystery. Maybe it's the movie's deepest truth. Because loneliness was everywhere in the story. It was there every time Peter Parker walked past someone who used to know him and didn't get so much as a second glance. It was there when he sat alone in an apartment that used to be full of people. It was there in the quiet, unglamorous fact that the world had simply moved on without him. Nobody made a big deal about it. Because that's not how loneliness usually works. It doesn't announce itself, instead it just keeps piling on. It is that way in this movie and it is that way in real life. The strange thing about loneliness is that there isn't just one way it finds us. Sometimes it finds us when someone dies. Sometimes a marriage ends, or a friendship that once seemed permanent quietly disappears. And sometimes nothing dramatic happens at all. We're just lonely. I mentioned this idea for the blog to a good friend of mine, and his response stopped me. His mother recently lost her husband and now lives with him and his family. She isn't alone. There are people in the house who love her. There are meals and conversations and all the ordinary movement of family life around her. But her world has been getting smaller. Her husband is gone. She can no longer drive. Friends who once called or texted don't seem to anymore. "Mom is experiencing that now," he told me. "Even with us around." And then he said something I haven't been able to forget. "I see it every day." Maybe that's what we misunderstand about loneliness. We sometimes treat it like a math problem. Put enough people in the room and loneliness should disappear. But it doesn't work that way. Sometimes you can be deeply loved and still deeply lonely. What you miss isn't " people " - - you miss a particular person, a particular life. The one who knew how you took your coffee. The familiar voice from the other room. The freedom to get in the car and go somewhere, the job where people knew your name, the routines you never realized were holding your world together until they were gone. Maybe loneliness isn't always an empty room. Sometimes it's the empty spaces left inside a life that is still very much full of people. I've seen that kind of loneliness in my work. I've seen it at funerals where a widow or widower is surrounded by a room full of people who genuinely love them, while knowing that eventually everyone will go home. And so will they. Except they will go home without the one person they desperately wish were going with them. I know something about that kind of loneliness too. Chances are, you have too. Sometimes it lasts an evening and then there are times when it lasts much longer. Sometimes we know exactly why it's there, and sometimes we couldn't explain it if we tried. We can be lonely in an empty house. We can also be lonely at a crowded table. Maybe that's why loneliness makes such a good villain. It doesn't need a mask . It hides in the quiet apartment, the empty side of the bed, the phone call you don't make anymore. Nobody claps when it's defeated because most of the time nobody else even knew it was there. And I don't think Spider-Man ever really beats it. Not for good. But then I'm not sure any of us do. Maybe that's because loneliness isn't always something to be defeated. Sometimes there is no fixing the empty side of the bed. No replacing the person who knew how you took your coffee. No giving someone back the life they had before the world changed. Maybe, for now, the point is simply to notice. Not because noticing leads somewhere, not because it's the first step toward fixing anything. It doesn't solve the math. Counting heads in a room never made anyone less lonely, and neither will counting the people who noticed. Noticing isn't a means to an end here — it's the whole point. That's the Unlikely Altar this time. Not the web itself, but the moment somebody stops and sees the person standing in it, caught, and says so out loud. Amanda, catching it in a sentence almost nobody else heard. My friend, seeing it in his mother every day, in a house full of people who love her. Somebody, once, seeing it in me. Maybe that's how we keep weaving the web. Not by making loneliness disappear. By making sure the lonely don't disappear with it.