Why Wait My Grandma Sally lived through an unimaginable experience, surviving the horrors of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. She taught me many lessons about love and post-traumatic growth in the face of pain.

She inspired me to make a difference in the lives of others because, after all, our existence here is so precious, and there is no time to waste.

The idea of “why wait” became a mantra that has been infused into everything I do, including my work at Reimagine. Grandma Sally’s journey was not in vain. I see her legacy in all of us, for in the face of what’s hard, we all share that same human capacity to meet the storms of life with love and compassion.

This video features some incredible friends who are now responding to loss and adversity similarly, by tapping into that well of humanity that keeps us going, with our heads held high and our hearts still open.

Cover You In Flowers: Grace Livingston was raised by a single mom and began volunteering for Reimagine soon after her mom died of ovarian cancer. That experience made Grace want to change the common ways people respond to death in America—as something that we tend to fear and push away. However, no sooner did she start on her volunteer path with Reimagine, than she herself was diagnosed with the same type of cancer.

For the next two years, we supported Grace in every way we could, which for her was by providing friendship, a space, and a community within which she could share her own unfolding journey and perspectives on mortality. Grace became the featured speaker at a number of Reimagine’s festivals and a leading advocate for facing death to embrace life.

Personally, Grace reminded me a lot of Sara (see below). She had an amazing spirit. And like Sara, I had an opportunity to play music for her during her illness. Through those times, I met her fiancee Ben. He loved and cared for Grace in such a beautiful way. Even though Grace’s illness was terminal, Ben and Grace followed through with their wedding.

During COVID, I couldn’t see Grace because of her compromised immune system. But one day, Ben invited me over to play music for her. I spent two hours singing by her side. Later that day, Grace died. Ben covered her body in exquisite flowers, sharing the photo with Grace’s circle to honor her message that indeed there is beauty to be found in the human experience of dying.

I wrote a song for Grace’s memorial about all this and its impact on me…about Ben and Grace and what it means to truly love someone to the end end.

Sara’s Got A Sunbeam: As a 19-year-old just experiencing adulthood, I fell in love with Sara, my dear childhood friend. When she was diagnosed with pediatric cancer, I didn’t know what to do—there was no school-based education around grief, or caregiving, or death. I’m so grateful I could turn to my guitar, which fortunately gave me—and Sara— some solace. For two years, I played regular bedside concerts for her at the hospital, amazed at how music could bring healing to both of us.

I channeled my pain and love into a number of songs for Sara. This one, Sara’s Got A Sunbeam, became an anthem of hope and belief during her illness.

Sara’s life and death taught me to pursue what matters most; she put me on my path. Following her death and named after this song, I founded the Sunbeam Foundation for pediatric cancer research, which has provided over $1M in seed grants to young pediatric cancer researchers. I also launched a music career and a journey to help everyone find their own music through loss, adversity and mortality, a mission which is now my life’s work with Reimagine.