What We Owe The People We Love

You know somebody who's carrying something heavy right now. A brother, a cousin, a coworker, maybe even you. And most of us have no idea what to actually do when we see it — so we don't do anything, and we call that being respectful of their privacy. It isn't. It's fear wearing a polite outfit.

Identify. Don't deny. Act.

Three steps, and every one of them matters. Identify means paying attention when someone starts acting out of character — sleeping way too much or barely at all, withdrawing from people they used to be close to, eating in a way that doesn't look like them. We all have off days. This is different, and lingering, and it's information, not something to wait out.

Don't deny is exactly what it sounds like. Stop looking away because acknowledging it feels too real, too scary, too much like admitting something is actually wrong. Plenty of families have learned the hard way that silence never protected anyone. It just delayed the help that should have come sooner.

Act promptly means getting that person real support instead of hoping it resolves on its own. NAMI — the National Alliance on Mental Illness — is a solid place to start, with plain-language resources for families who have no idea where to begin.

And if it's a crisis, the number is 988. Not 911.

Write this down somewhere. Calling 911 sends law enforcement, and officers aren't trained the way a mental health professional is trained — we've all heard too many stories of a mental health crisis ending in tragedy because the wrong kind of responder showed up. Calling 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, connects you straight to someone equipped to help a person through exactly that moment. You may never need it. But if you do, it changes everything about how the moment unfolds.

Now let's talk about the couch.

There's a story that made me laugh and wince at the same time — a woman who got so bottom-heavy, in her own words, that her husband had to physically boost her up off the sofa. Not the forklift, she'd clarify, just him. And there's nothing wrong with a little junk in the trunk, she'd tell you. Her trunk was just a little overloaded, and she knew it, and she was honest enough to laugh about it instead of hiding from it.

Before she found her way out, she tried everything. Running miles a day. Cutting fish, then cutting more. A church fast that was supposed to be about drawing closer to God and, if she's honest, she was hoping it would drop a few pounds too — forty days, zero pounds lost. A husband who'd come home at midnight with chicken wings insisting she eat, even when she wasn't hungry, and her sitting up in bed at midnight eating anyway. None of it worked, because none of it came from a clear place yet.

Then life forced her hand. A separation. A move back to her hometown. A hurricane that displaced her all over again. And somewhere in the middle of starting over — completely over — she made one real decision: no more animal products, no more byproducts, walking two and a half miles a day. Within a week, the weight started moving. Seventy pounds later, years maintained, and she'll tell you she hasn't taken a vitamin or a pill since. She was exposed to COVID directly for days, living with someone who had it, and never caught it.

The lesson isn't her specific diet. It's that nothing she tried before actually stuck, no matter how disciplined she was about it, until the decision came from clarity instead of frustration. That's the part worth remembering — not the meal plan, the mindset shift underneath it.

Journaling isn't about writing something pretty. It's about getting it out.

If you've been curious about journaling but worried you're doing it wrong, here's the freedom in it: there is no wrong way. Say what you actually feel. Curse if you need to — that's between you and God. Write the thing you couldn't say to a therapist, a friend, or even yourself out loud. The page holds what your voice can't, and there's real relief in getting it out of your body and onto paper instead of carrying it silently.

The same goes for sitting with a hard feeling instead of running from it. Denial doesn't make anything disappear. It just delays the moment you eventually have to face it anyway — usually with less grace than if you'd faced it the first time. Feel it all the way through. Then keep moving.

Be who you are. Full stop.

There's a kind of elevation that has nothing to do with a title or an income bracket. It's knowing exactly who you are and being at peace walking around as that person, out loud, without editing yourself down to make somebody else comfortable. Pair that with staying open — don't count people out too fast, don't close a door just because the opportunity didn't arrive wrapped the way you expected. You never know who's going to be the one who moves you exactly where you're supposed to go next.

And when it's all said and done, let the legacy be joy.

Not the polite kind people perform once you're gone — the "God rest their soul" said out of obligation instead of truth. The real thing. Someone remembered as encouraging, motivating, full of vigor, someone who loved God and loved people, whose name still makes people smile years later. That's worth building toward every single day you're still here to build it.

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