Hello, everyone! As we step into the new year, I have a wish for you – at the end of this newsletter, so stay still.

A significant moment for me as I closed out 2023 was recording a podcast episode with Marie. She’s a special mentor, friend, and a jar of joy in my life. Unexpectedly ending her career as a public servant, lawyer, and human rights activist when Kevin, the love of her life, was diagnosed with the rare disease Dementia, Marie and Kevin are no strangers to life’s surprises and the borderline between life and death.

Initially, I thought that starting our new year, our first newsletter, by discussing death might seem a bit strange. However, what could be more powerful than contemplating death to inspire us to live life to the fullest? Who knows what awaits us this year?

For Marie, this year means “death is not about dying”. With Kevin having little time left, every aspect of their lives – meaning, vision, and each moment – becomes so vibrant. Most of us reading this newsletter have the precious gift that is currently missing in Kevin and Marie’s life – good health for ourselves and our loved ones. If they can still give so much to life and to society (they continue to spread kindness, love, and art to this world despite the circumstance – listen to the episode for a full story), why can’t we? Gifts always come with responsibilities, as Kimmerer mentions in her book “Braiding Sweetgrass.”

In one chapter, Kimmerer offers us food for thought when she discusses the difference between Potawatomi – an Indigenous language taken away from her grandfather and her people – and English. Unlike French, which distinguishes words by gender, or English, which separates human and non-human, Potawatomi differentiates words by animacy. “A bay is a noun only if water is dead.” In Potawatomi, the majority of words are verbs because everything is alive. Everything could be a living being. Hence, we must respect.