The Light Is On

Exactly one year ago my colleague texted and asked me to call her. When I did, she didn’t hold back.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” she said. “Sheri died.”

The words landed quietly, but heavily, the kind of weight that settles in your body before your mind can make sense of it. It sits on your chest, and for a moment, you wonder how long it will be before you can breathe again.

Sheri was a mentor, a boss, a work-mom, a role model, a seriously tough broad, a friend and so much more. Her approach to fiduciary work shaped how I came to understand responsibility, care, and what it means to serve others well.

I sat with it for a moment, letting reality sink in. There’s a particular stillness that comes when someone you know, someone whose life was deeply woven into care, planning, and service, is suddenly gone. It’s like sitting next to a candle just after the flame has gone out.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Sheri ran a fiduciary firm. Her life’s work revolved around preparation, foresight, and helping others navigate the practical realities of aging, illness, and death.

Yet, here I was, sitting with the same quiet shock that arrives no matter how prepared we think we are.

Death has a way of humbling even the most organized among us.

Around that same time, I was coming home from the hospital with my son.

It had been one of those days where everything feels slightly unreal - the fluorescent lights, the clipped conversations, the quiet intensity of watching someone you love need care.

When we finally walked out, I remember thinking how fragile everything felt. How thin the line was between “normal life” and something else entirely.

I remember feeling the weight of it all press in at once.

My child. My work. My responsibilities. The people who depended on me. The decisions waiting to be made.

And beneath it all, a quieter thought I didn’t want to admit:

I don’t know if I can carry all of this.

That moment stayed with me.

I realized something then that I’d spent years skirting around - we are taught to plan for death, but not to prepare for the emotional weight of living alongside it.

We prepare documents. We organize accounts. We create instructions.

But we don’t often talk about what it feels like to be the one holding it all together while life continues to ask more of us.

We don’t talk about the exhaustion that comes from being the steady one. The quiet fear of making the wrong decision. The loneliness of carrying responsibility that no one else quite sees.

We tell ourselves there will be time.

Later, when things slow down.  Later, when the kids are older.  Later, when work settles.  Later, when we feel braver.

But later has a way of arriving suddenly - or not at all.

What struck me most wasn’t fear. It was tenderness.

The realization that so much of what we carry goes unnamed. People walk around holding questions about aging parents, about responsibility, about legacy, about what happens if they’re no longer here, and they hold it quietly, often alone.

We live in a culture that avoids these conversations until crisis forces them. When that moment does come, we’re often unprepared, not just logistically, but emotionally.

Advanced planning, I’ve come to believe, isn’t really about documents or directives.

It’s about presence.

It’s about giving ourselves and the people we love the gift of clarity, honesty, and a little less uncertainty when things feel most fragile.

It’s about having a place to say the things we’re afraid to say out loud.

That’s what led me to create Mimi’s Porch.

Not as a service.  Not as a checklist.  Not as a place to “get things done.”

But as a place to sit.

A place to talk.  A place to think.  A place to be human with one another.

A porch is, after all, where conversations linger. Where you stop by without ceremony. Where you can arrive exactly as you are- tired, thoughtful, unsure - and still be welcomed.

The light is on.

It means you’re not too late.  It means you don’t have to carry everything alone.  It means there’s room to pause, to reflect, and to speak honestly about the things that matter most.

That’s what I hope Mimi’s Porch can be.

A light left on.  A chair pulled up.  A reminder that even in the midst of uncertainty, you’re not alone.

(Originally posted on LinkedIn on January 29, 2026, The Light Is On)