I am a grief counselor and educator, not a minister. And last Sunday I officiated a wedding.

Not just any wedding. Emily & Nathan’s wedding.

Emily is the adopted daughter of Holly, my BFF since we were in high school.

Holly didn’t legally adopt Emily. Holly became Emily’s stepmom when she married Emily’s dad Mark. Emily was in high school.

Mark died of cancer. Holly and Mark were only married four years. Far too short for such a great love. Emily was college.

Emily’s mom died in 2020. Emily was in graduate school.

No one can name the official adoption dates. But somewhere in all that life and loss compressed into a few short years – Holly became Emily’s Mama. Holly’s daughter Annie became Emily’s Sissy. And my family became a branch of Emily’s family tree as her Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins.

However, I don’t get to be Emily’s Aunt just because I’m one of Holly’s besties. I have the honor of being an aunt to Emily because I stayed with her family during her dad’s final days.

In early November 2018, Holly texted me that after a year of cancer treatments, Mark was going on hospice to manage pain. At that time, I was still new to my role as a Hospice Bereavement Counselor on the opposite coast. When I mentioned Holly’s text to my manager, she kindly yet clearly told me that she was thought Mark was dying and I should get on a plane to see them as soon as possible. Two days later I was a Bereavement Counselor on a five-hour flight destined for grief I didn’t know how to prepare for.

In the early days of my visit Mark declined rapidly. Holly was devoted to his bedside, and I talked regularly with Mark’s hospice staff as well as with Emily, who was still at her college apartment four hours away. We were all having a hard time absorbing the reality that Mark’s life could be so short. Emily was also consumed with finishing college and preparing for her December graduation ceremony in a few short weeks.

Mark desperately wanted to see Emily graduate. His hospice nurse told me that the advanced state of his disease progression would not allow that to happen. During a late-night phone conversation with Emily, she asked me what she should do. Her dad and Holly were telling her that Mark could recover. Emily sensed things were worse than what was being shared. Emily and I still did not know each other well at that point, but I told her that I thought she should come home and spend time with her dad. And as we hung up, I added that she should bring her cap and gown.

A couple days after Emily arrived, their family doctor made a house call to talk about Mark’s condition. I sat in the room with Mark, Holly, Emily, and the doctor they trusted most as he gently explained that Mark had exhausted all treatments. He was not going to recover. And his life expectancy was days to weeks.

Devastating.

After silence and hugging and crying and conversation and more silence – I suggested that we should celebrate Emily’s college graduation while Mark was still fully alert. Everyone agreed.

And so, we had a party. Just the four of us.

I made a chocolate cake and filled champagne glasses with Prosecco. We played jazz music and lit candles in Mark and Holly’s bedroom. Emily hugged and kissed her dad wearing her cap and gown, and Mark gazed at his only child in her academic regalia with so much pride.

A week later Mark died in his sleep with Holly at his side and Emily’s cap and gown hanging over the window next to his bed.

One of the most powerful truths that I learned from working in hospice is that the terminally ill are so much more than people dying from disease. They are people who are living. Human Beings who embody heart, mind, and soul – until the moment of their last breath. And we can continue living with them even as they are dying.

One of the most powerful truths I have learned from being with my personal loved ones who are dying is that the space between life and death becomes very thin for everyone present. And in that thin space the sacred is felt with a certainty that is experienced more deeply than it can ever be explained by intellect.

Sharing that sacred space with Emily when her father was dying – where all the spaces between sorrow and joy and pain and beauty and grief and gratitude grew very thin – is the reason sharing the sacred space of her wedding day as the Officiant felt honoring, overwhelming, nervous, wonderous, and completely natural. All the things, all at once. Just like life.

There are few opportunities in life that matter as much as the opportunity to show up for each other. On the days when the life we’ve known is ending and the days when new life is just beginning and all the ordinary days in between. We just need to keep showing up to tell each other how much our people matter, to give witness to the one another’s story, and to delight in the collective wonder of it all.

Sharing life with Emily – and now Nathan – is true joy. And I am eternally grateful that our paths will continue to lead us to one another’s door so that we can keep showing up for each other in everything that comes next.