Freya Everly

This week I don’t have a strong introduction to lead off this blog post, so it will read a little scattered. I’m still feeling stuck– like when you walk in nature with rain boots after an intense storm and you’re second-guessing the path you took through the wet terrain because of the struggle and messy aftermath. I’m sure mud is a metaphor here, but I’m not diving down that path today.  This feeling of being stuck, though, makes every step a struggle, and the resistance steals any momentum that I start with.

Last week I came across an interview Carrie Coon did on CBS Sunday Morning about a monologue she had in White Lotus on friendship and connection. Her take on why it resonated with people is such a refreshing and insightful look at loneliness in the modern age. She gives the example of people being so connected to digital devices that we’re not really present. “What are we looking for [on our phones] and what are we getting?”

I think we’ve all succumbed to a weird online world built around performance. That curated performance shows an inauthentic snapshot of our lives. After that we can spin out with comparison and it feeds a cycle of FOMO that leaves us feeling more isolated than connected. We’re not connecting in person, and we’re certainly not showing up as authentically vulnerable as we can be. 

As I listened to her, I found myself thinking about grief. One of the hardest parts of loss is how isolating it can be. Even when you’re surrounded by people who love you, there are experiences that feel impossible to fully communicate.

From September 2024 to March 2025, I blogged about Freya and her leukemia journey. Writing was one way I processed what we were going through. Then I stopped. April through July brought four months of incredibly difficult treatment phases, and I was focused almost entirely on making it through each day.

August 2025 felt like our saving grace. Freya entered Maintenance, and for the first time in a long while, it felt like we could see the finish line. Things were supposed to get markedly better. We just had to make it to December 2, 2026, when she’d ring the bell and we could resume a normal, healthy life.

The fog started to lift. We could breathe again. We felt a little more like ourselves. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment because I recently went back and reread some of those posts. God, that was hard.

Back then, we were a different kind of stuck. We were stuck in cancer treatment phases, postponing big memory-making experiences and living cautiously to protect our immunocompromised child. We really didn’t take risks—we lived largely in a bubble, except for the kids going to school, because we had a lot of hope and assurance that we just had to get to the Maintenance finish line, and we’d be okay…because we were past the worst of it.

Freya’s story didn’t end that way. Now we’re living in the upside down—a darker reality where she didn’t make it.

Everything I wrote above is true, and how I’m feeling—like a constant hum in my every day. But, we also have space for hope and hold that door open for opportunities of joy to enter.

Part of what we’ve learned through our grief is that it creates an ache that needs someplace to go. Grief wants an expression—an attempt to take what broke apart and pour it into art, acts of service, memory, or relationships –something that can transform our sorrow into something that can still nurture life. Grief is a battle for our modern culture because, until recently, we didn’t talk about it. We boxed it into a tidy lie and called it “the grieving period”, as though it would one day leave us and we’d move on. The truth is that loss changes us permanently. Life doesn’t pause while we figure out what it all means. Understanding comes while we’re walking, not before we begin. Sometimes you get a map. Most of the time, you don’t. Sometimes you don’t even know where the path leads. You just keep moving, trusting that meaning will reveal itself somewhere along the way.

That’s why Freya’s courtyard memorial project feels so important to us. Grief creates an ache that needs somewhere to go, and this is our first attempt to pour that ache into something tangible—something that can offer beauty, connection, and comfort to others.

Next week, we’ll begin the work of bringing Freya’s courtyard space at Serena Hills to life. Despite all the sadness we carry, we are genuinely excited about what it will become. I’ve written more about the vision for the space here, and I hope you’ll read it and share in that excitement.

Maybe that’s what Carrie Coon was getting at when she talked about connection and meaning. In a world that often feels fragmented and performative, what matters most is still remarkably simple: being present with one another, creating something together, and finding ways to love people while we have the chance.

I don’t know exactly where this path leads. Most days, I’m still standing in the mud, second-guessing my footing. But I’m learning that being stuck and moving forward aren’t opposites.

Sometimes they’re happening at the very same time.

Songs for this week: