The Call That Changed Everything
About two weeks ago, I was feeling happy and thankful for life. Not because everything was perfect or because something big happened, but because I was having one of those moments where you look around and realize how much there is to be grateful for.
I was thinking about the people I have met, the memories I have created, the places life has taken me, and the simple gift of still being here. When you have experienced loss, you start seeing life differently. You begin to understand that the ordinary moments we rush through are sometimes the exact moments we wish we could get back.
I was joyful… until the first call came through my little cellphone.
It was my friend’s sister.
I remember answering the phone and hearing something in her voice that my heart recognized before my mind could understand. It is strange how our bodies sometimes know something has shifted before the words are even spoken.
Then she said the words no one ever wants to hear.
My dear friend had passed away.
That moment, every vein in my body stopped. I don’t know how else to describe it. I blacked out for a moment. I could not see. I could not feel. It was like my body was present, but my mind had disconnected from everything happening around me.
Then everything came rushing in at once. I found myself down on my knees, my arms raised high, crying out, “Not another one. Please, not another one. Why me?”
And I know those words may sound strange because I was not the one who died. I was not the only person who loved him. His family, his friends, and so many others were carrying that pain too.
But anyone who has experienced repeated loss understands that sometimes one loss does not arrive by itself. Sometimes it carries every other goodbye you have ever survived with it.
In that moment, I wasn’t only crying because I lost my friend. I was crying because I recognized that feeling. The feeling of a phone call changing everything. The feeling of someone you just spoke to becoming someone you now have to speak about in past tense. The feeling of life reminding you once again that we truly don’t have as much time as we think we do.
And as if my heart had not already carried enough that week, another message came through.
A different friend.
Another loss.
Another goodbye I was not prepared for.
The strange part about all of this is that grief is the work I do.
I talk about grief. I write about grief. I study grief. I create spaces where people can bring the pain they don’t always know how to explain.
But the reason I love this work is because grief continues to humble me.
Even I cannot always make sense of it.
Sometimes people assume that when you understand something, it hurts less. They think knowledge protects you from the emotions that come with it.
But grief doesn’t work that way.
Understanding grief does not mean my hands don’t shake when someone I love dies. Understanding grief does not mean my heart does not break. Understanding grief does not mean I always know what I am supposed to feel. It just means I have learned to sit with the feelings instead of running away from them.
And this week, I found myself sitting with a lot. What I didn’t know was that these losses would not only ask me to grieve the people I loved. They would also ask me to step into spaces where I had to help others say goodbye.
Holding Grief While Helping Others Grieve
As I was trying to understand losing two people in such a short amount of time, I found myself stepping into roles I never expected to carry that week.
I was not only grieving. I was also being asked to help others grieve.
One of my friend’s fiancée reached out and asked if I could help create an African Wake. A space where we could come together, honor his life, celebrate the person he was, and remember him beyond the moment of his passing.
As I started preparing for his celebration of life ritual, I kept thinking about what it truly means to honor someone after they are gone.
In many African traditions, death is not only seen as the ending of someone’s story. It is a transition. It is a moment where the community comes together to honor the life that was lived, the memories created, and the connection that continues beyond the physical.
Growing up, grief was never meant to be carried alone. The village gathered. People cried together. People told stories. People danced. People celebrated. Because the person was more than the day they left this world.
And as I prepared for the Wake, I kept reminding myself of that.
This was not about creating a perfect goodbye. This was about honoring him. The laughter he brought. The lives he touched. The moments that made him who he was.
And in creating that space, I was reminded of something important.
Even the person holding space needs others to help hold it too.
That is where Queen Setche became part of this journey.
Known as The Emotional DJ, Queen Setche has a gift that goes beyond music. She understands the emotional movement of a room and how to guide people through moments that hold both grief and celebration.
Through music, storytelling, culture, humor, and connection, she helped create a space where people from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds could come together and experience what a community is supposed to feel like. She helped create a place where tears were welcome, laughter belonged, and we could dance, celebrate, and honor the fullness of his life.
For a moment, the village existed again.
But while one goodbye reminded me of the power of community, the other goodbye asked me to carry something different. Something more personal.
I have always believed in the importance of writing a will and having those difficult conversations while we are still here. Not because we want to spend our lives thinking about death, but because sometimes love means leaving behind direction for the people who will have to make decisions when we no longer can.
We often talk about the importance of making our wishes known, but this week I found myself experiencing the other side of that conversation.
The person who is left behind to fulfill those wishes.
I remember sitting there after the call from my other friend’s sister, still trying to understand everything that was happening. She started explaining what they had found in his will, and then she shared the part that had my name attached to it.
My friend had written that if anything ever happened to him, he wanted Epiphany to help him get to the other side.
I sat there with those words for a while because I understood exactly why my friend would ask that of me. I understood the trust behind it. I understood the meaning behind it. I understood that out of all the people in his life, he believed I would honor him, his journey, and his transition in a way that represented who he was. But understanding why someone chose you does not mean carrying it becomes easy. And that is where I struggled.
Because the truth is, with all the loss I have experienced in my life, funerals are still one of the hardest places for me to be. As a matter of fact, the last place I want to be is standing at a cemetery saying another goodbye.
People sometimes assume that because you have survived something, because you talk about something, or because you have dedicated your life to understanding something, that means it no longer affects you the same way. But I have learned that is not true.
Sometimes the things we understand the most are still the things that bring us face to face with our own humanity.
When the day came to fulfill my friend’s final wish, I showed up. Not because it was easy. Not because I had somehow mastered grief. But because my friend trusted me with something sacred, and sometimes love asks us to show up even when our own heart is hurting.
At the burial, there was a moment where everything caught up with me. I started shaking. My body became overheated. I could feel myself trying to stay present while also feeling every loss I have ever carried.
And in that moment, I was reminded that grief does not only live in our thoughts.
Sometimes our body remembers the places, the moments, and the goodbyes…
even when we tell ourselves we are okay.
The Honor and Weight of Being Chosen
A few days later, someone asked me a question about the responsibility my friend left me in his will. A question that I have continued to sit with.
They asked me, “Do you think it was fair that your friend put you in this position?”
I remember pausing because I didn’t know how to answer right away. And honestly, I still don’t know if there is one answer.
Because one moment, I think about it and feel like it was one of the greatest honors someone could ever give me. For someone to think about one of the most sacred moments of their life and say, “If anything happens to me, this is the person I trust.”
There is something so powerful and beautiful about that.
To know that my friend trusted me not just with a task, but with his goodbye. He trusted me with his culture, his spirit, his family, his friends, and the people he loved. He trusted that I would honor him in a way that represented the life he lived.
And I will never take that lightly.
But the other side of me felt something completely different.
There were moments where it felt like a curse. Not because I didn’t want to honor him and not because I didn’t love him, but because it meant standing face to face with the one thing I have had to survive over and over again.
Another goodbye. Another funeral. Another cemetery. Another moment of accepting that someone I love is now someone I have to carry through memories.
And that is the complicated part about grief and love that I think we sometimes forget. The things that are an honor to carry can still feel heavy. The things we are grateful for can still hurt.
Both can exist at the same time.
I keep thinking about that moment at the burial when my body started shaking and I felt overheated. A part of me wanted to understand why. After everything I have survived. After everything I know. After all the years of talking about grief and loss, why does my body still react this way?
But maybe that is the reminder I needed.
Before the titles, before the knowledge, before the roles we play in other people’s lives, we are human first.
And humans feel.
This week reminded me again why I do the work I do. Not because I have mastered grief. Not because I have figured out some secret way to make loss hurt less. But because grief has been one of my greatest teachers.
It has taught me about love, connection, and how quickly everything can change. It has taught me the importance of telling people what they mean to us while they are still here.
Because two weeks ago, I was sitting there feeling happy and grateful for life, not knowing the calls that were coming. Not knowing everything was about to shift.
And maybe that is the reality of being human.
We don’t know when the last conversation will happen. We don’t know when the last hug will be. We don’t know which ordinary moment will become the memory we wish we could experience one more time.
I don’t know if I will ever fully understand grief.
Maybe I’m not supposed to.
Maybe none of us are.
Maybe grief is not something we master. Maybe it is something we continue building a relationship with every time love and loss meet again.
My friend trusted me to help him get to the other side.
And even though carrying that wish broke my heart in ways I cannot explain, I did.
With shaking hands.
With a heavy heart.
With all the love I had for him.
Because sometimes the greatest honors in life are also the heaviest things we will ever carry.
And every loss I experience reminds me of this truth.
Maybe grief is not something we master.
Maybe it is something we continue building a relationship with every time love and loss meet again.
