Every Loss Is a Doorway

My sister Devra and our Great Aunt Shirley

Uncle Barry Cohen - Forever a Defender of the People

Sunday Presence letter for August 2, 2026. For a long time, I have said death is a doorway to living awake. What I have not said, until now, is that every loss is a doorway. Not only the ones that end with a casket.

Divorce is a doorway. The parent who stops calling is a doorway. The child who chooses distance is a doorway. The friend of thirty years who falls silent is a doorway. The marriage where someone walks away is a doorway. Every loss is grief, and every grief is a threshold whether we chose it or not. I know this because I have walked through a door I did not want to close.

When we left Harrisburg, we left behind a life woven with so many beautiful childhood memories of our children. It was a move I chose, and it was still a loss. The friendships changed. The rhythm of daily life shifted. The pain of leaving carried its own grief.

Years on, I can tell you what I could not have told you then. The friendships I have now are the friendships aligned with who I am today. They are incredibly rewarding. I am blessed by them in a way I could not have imagined while I was still standing in front of the door that had closed. But when you are deep in the pain, you cannot see what is being made.