A Strange and Beautiful New Chapter What Loss, Brazil, and Time Have Taught Me About Life

I have been back in Brazil for almost a week now, and the kindness people have shown has been extraordinary. The messages, conversations, and gestures of support have meant more to me than I can fully express.

But in many ways, I’m not surprised. That has been my experience with Brazil from the very beginning. It is a place where people lead with warmth and generosity.

Brazil has also been a place of enormous change and growth for me. When I first came here, it was always with the assumption that my wife, Kristin, would eventually be living here with me. That was part of the story we were writing together.

Life, of course, sometimes rewrites the story.

Kristin and I started dating when I was a junior at the University of Michigan. She was a senior, "the older woman". We were engaged during my senior year and married when I was just 22 years old. I am now 50, and our daughter is following our footsteps by studying at UofM.

And now, for the first time in my adult life, I find myself truly living alone. I suppose you could call it a bachelor pad in Salvador, Brazil. That phrase makes me laugh a little, because it feels both accurate and completely surreal. For the first time in nearly three decades, I have my own place and a great deal of time to do the things I want to do. No schedule to coordinate. No one to ask permission from. No one waiting to hear the story when I walk through the door.

And yet, I still catch myself thinking: “I can’t wait to tell Kristin about this.” A restaurant. A conversation. Something funny that happened at school. That instinct doesn’t go away. I like to think that in some way, she is still sharing some of these experiences with me.

What this moment in life has made very clear to me is how miraculous it all really is. The years. The relationships. The ordinary days that we assume will repeat forever.

They don’t.

But the memories remain, and the people who lifted us up along the way remain part of who we are.

Living in Brazil has accelerated this reflection for me. A new culture, new friendships, new rhythms of life, all of it has a way of sharpening your perspective.

It reminds you of what truly matters.

Enjoy life.

Surround yourself with extraordinary people.

And if something is troubling you today, remember that time has a way of revealing what is truly important, and what is not.

With time often comes wisdom.

And sometimes, life places you in a completely new chapter on another continent to help you see it.