I’m drawn to stories about life and death—the fictional ones, not like true crime stories. Movies like Somewhere in Time and Ghost or TV shows like Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me. I recently ran across a TV show on one of the streaming services that I binged called Not Dead Yet, and two things: 1) it just struck me as an extension of last week’s blog entry where I encouraged you to use the word “yet,” and 2) it’s a quirky comedy about a writer who sees dead people.

For some reason, the protagonist, Nell, can see and converse with the people she’s assigned to write an obituary on. And that’s where the charm came in—each spirit taught her a lesson about living her own life after she attempted to rebuild it. Now, the first season was arguably better on that premise, which may be the reason it was canceled after two seasons. But that’s beside the point of what I wanted to share.

First of all, the “yet” word. I feel this is a powerful word. As mentioned all too briefly last week, it implies you’re not done with life, even if sometimes it feels like it. Especially in the context of the show’s title, you’re not dead yet. And neither am I, which is why I’m compelled to keep writing and sharing my story that life after loss(es) is absolutely possible when you decide to live it.

And, as you know, that time when we make that decision is personal to each of us—and some may choose not to decide for years, if ever. I have no choice but to respect that person’s choice, but if it’s not a choice, and if it’s just a default state, I would challenge that person to examine if it’s just depression or apathy talking. I like to believe that being happy should be our default state, though sometimes interrupted by life’s harsher moments.

And in those moments of harshness, lessons are learned. I’ve found that the most important ones were learned through pain and hardship. Those events challenged me to be stronger and to learn how to cope. Whether those events were caused by my own failure, work situations that became difficult, the deaths of my husbands, or even raising kids by myself, none of those were easy, and I had to figure it out.

One thing that helped me do that was time. If I didn’t have to have an answer immediately, I could always say, “I don’t know how to solve this…yet.” And I’d challenge myself to do so.

I’d lean on people I know and trust and seek their advice. Nowadays, we have a wealth of information at the end of an internet connection, but that’s not always easy to interpret—there’s so much conflicting information out there! I rely on my intuition and inner guidance (and no, that doesn’t always work, either—lesson learned!).

So, the second thing the show made me think about is the life lessons we learn from loss. Nell learned about the regrets and lives lived of the people she wrote about and applied those lessons to her own life, only more so in the first season.

I’ve learned not to take life for granted, that experiences are more important than things, that relationships are more important than I realized, and never to let someone I care about not know it. I’ve learned that photos of people are more important than photos of landscapes or architecture and that someday may never come, and has to be today. I’ve learned remembering the sounds of their voices is one of the first things to go, so I have recordings now of those I love.

The new book has a section on grief being a teacher, but it’s not the only teacher. Life, itself is a teacher. Each challenge, each loss, each memory—they’re all teachers, giving us lessons to shape who we are and who we are becoming. Combining those lessons with the word “yet,” I see potential and hope for what we can become. We’re not defined by our losses. I believe we can define ourselves by what we do with those lessons learned, and the the time we have to solve the “yet.”

I’m not dead yet, and neither are you. What are you doing with YOUR “yet?” You know what I’m doing…