BRISALO

Last fall, I had an idea. I wanted to gather my friends for a weekend away. A house, some good food, time together. My friend Tiffany encouraged me to do it. But I was tired, and the idea stayed an idea.

Over the past eight years, I’ve lost four friends to different types of cancer. Kaity in 2018, Adri in 2022, and just this past February, Tiffany and Kim, who both passed away in the same week at only 48 years old.

This frame and these flowers were created in loving memory of all four of them and held a special place on the mantle of our cabin. 🤍

There are things you already know that loss makes impossible to keep overlooking. I knew life was precious. I knew we weren’t promised another year together. I had already lost people I loved, including my son, and my parents. Still, there were plans I assumed I could make later. Invitations I could send when life settled down. People I thought I had more time to gather.

In March, I sent the invitation. I called the weekend Still Here. I wanted to celebrate that we were alive and could still be together. We could sit around a table, hear each other laugh, hug each other, and make a memory that didn’t begin with someone being gone.

Just a few weeks ago, on an October weekend, eighteen of us gathered in Hocking Hills. Women from different seasons of my life, some who knew one another and some who didn’t. Each arrived with a life she had stepped away from for a few days. Responsibilities, relationships, worries, people who needed her. Whatever she was carrying, I wanted there to be room for her to set some of it down.

Before the weekend, several women offered to help. They asked what they could bring and what they could do. I loved them for asking. I also knew what I hoped to give them. I wanted them to arrive without an assignment. That was intentional. The meals, the welcome baskets, the little details waiting for them—all of it was a way of saying, I thought about you before you got here. I’m glad you came. You can settle in.

I know how quickly a gathering can become another responsibility. We offer to organize, cook, clean, coordinate. We wonder whether we’re doing enough. Sometimes we start working before we’ve even taken off our coats. For this weekend, I wanted to make receiving a little easier.

They could rest. They could stay up talking or go to bed. They could join in or take some quiet time. There was room to choose what felt good without having to explain it.

Of course, I hoped they would enjoy themselves, and be given a chance to breathe. I had spent months thinking about how to help them feel welcome and loved. But there is only so much you can prepare. Eventually, everyone arrives, and the gathering begins to belong to the people in it. That was my favorite part: hearing their laughter with each other, watching women from different parts of my life find things to talk about, seeing them enjoy themselves in a place where I had hoped they would feel comfortable enough to do exactly that.

I love to love my people. I love finding ways to help them feel it. And that weekend, I got to witness them receiving it—and giving it to each other. It filled me up in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Afterward, women told me how much they had needed the weekend. I don’t think any of us could have known beforehand exactly what it would mean to us. I certainly didn’t know what it would reveal to me about my own life.

I’ve spent so much of my life working, leading, solving, and helping things move forward. Those parts of me still have a place. But after Still Here, I found myself thinking differently about where I wanted my time and energy to go. I wanted more of what I had just witnessed. More meals together. More laughter. More time with people I love. More opportunities to create a place where someone can feel safe, seen, and cared for. I came home grateful, and a little quieter inside.

There was sadness woven into the weekend, too. Tiffany had encouraged the original idea, and she wasn’t there to see it happen. I wish she and Kim could have been with us. I wish we had more memories left to make together. I carried that love into the invitation, into the preparations, into my hope that the women who came would leave knowing how much they mattered to me.

I’ve always heard the nudges. Someone comes to mind, something is put on my heart, and I feel that pull to reach out or bring people together. I’ve been intentional about following through sometimes, and other times I’ve let the thought pass into a busy day. Still Here is my own nudge to be more discerning and intentional with what is placed on my heart—to give it my attention and consider what I’m being invited to do.

It doesn’t always need to be a weekend away. Sometimes it’s dinner, even when the house isn’t ready. Coffee on an ordinary afternoon. A message that becomes an actual date on the calendar. Telling someone what you appreciate about her while she is here to hear it.

And to my friends who said yes: thank you. Thank you for making room in your lives, for traveling, for stepping away from the people and responsibilities that needed you, and for spending a weekend with me. I know that saying yes took something from each of you, and I don’t take that lightly.

You came into a house filled with women from different chapters of my life, and you opened yourselves to one another. You brought your humor, your stories, your kindness, and your willingness to be there. I got to hear people I adore laughing together. I got to watch friendships begin and deepen. Those are memories I will carry with so much tenderness.

I wanted you to feel how loved you are. Every little thing I prepared was one more way to tell you. And then you showed up, and your presence gave me something I couldn’t have put in a basket or planned into the weekend. You let me share this part of my heart with you. You helped bring an idea I had carried for a year to life.

When I think about Still Here, I think about your faces. I hear your laughter. I feel grateful that, out of all the ways our lives could have unfolded, I get to be your friend.

We’re still here, my friends. Thank you for spending some of that precious time with me. I absolutely adore you.

Big hugs and love,
Stacy

P.S. Sometimes you wish a weekend would never end. You wish you could bottle up the laughter, the conversations, the feeling of being surrounded by your people, and find a way to return to it whenever you want. That’s one of the beautiful things about music. It lets us hold onto a feeling, relive a memory, and carry a little piece of a moment with us long after it’s passed. 💙

The last morning of our weekend together, I sat on the side porch of our cabin watching the sun rise beneath the most magnificent blue sky. I started writing down all the words, emotions, and feelings I was carrying from the weekend. Somewhere in those words, a song began to take shape.

That song became “We’re Still Here,” which I wrote and released under the name SJ Rivers. (Cuz, this girl can’t sing).

I sent it to the girls for their road trip home as a way to hold on to the joy of that weekend and wanted to share a little piece of it with you, too.

To me, it’s more than a song. It’s an anthem for friendship, for showing up, for making memories, for embracing the messy, beautiful gift of being alive, and for celebrating the people who make it all worthwhile.

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

My hope is that when you listen, it makes you think of your own people, the moments that matter, and all the life you still have to celebrate together. Because we’re still here, and there’s still so much life to live. 🪩