Between Breaths

A quiet reckoning with loss, survival, and the moments that teach us how to live

The day of my aunt’s funeral arrived quietly. No thunder. No announcement. Just a date on a calendar that refused to feel real. I learned about it while I was still in the hospital, lying under white lights that never dimmed, listening to machines that counted time in small mechanical breaths. There was no room to take it in. Grief needs space. Hospitals give you none.

When you are in pain, your world shrinks to the size of your own body. Everything else becomes background noise. Voices drift. News lands without weight. You nod because that is what people expect. Inside, nothing moves. You are in the center of a storm, and the storm has a way of convincing you that it is the only thing that exists.

My aunt’s death sat somewhere beyond that storm. Across the country. Across memory. Across a version of myself that had not yet begun to ask certain questions.

Not the poetic version. Not the quiet slipping away in sleep. I’ve held it in my hands. Felt its weight. Watched it arrive without apology. Each time, it took something with it. A piece of innocence. A piece of certainty. You tell yourself you’ll get used to it. You don’t.

Years ago, I watched a man collapse on a baseball field.

We were in a championship game. The kind where the score matters and the sun feels brighter and everything is loud and alive. Then someone shouted. Not a cheer. Not a call. A sound that cuts through joy like a blade.

An older man had gone down. He was playing the game he loved, or maybe just standing near it, soaking in the noise and the company. We didn’t think. We ran. Several of us. No hesitation. No plan. Just instinct.

We started CPR. We tried everything we knew. But he was already gone. He had been gone before we reached him. The game stopped. The field went silent. The scoreboard meant nothing.

Later, people said he died doing what he loved. Maybe that was true. Or maybe what he loved wasn’t the game at all. Maybe it was the people. The laughter. The ritual of showing up. The simple joy of being part of something ordinary and alive.

Isn’t that what most of life really is? Not the milestones. Not the headlines. But the hours spent smiling with people who know your name. The small moments that never announce themselves as important.

I think about that now more than I used to.

I think about how quickly everything can stop. How fragile the distance is between breathing and not. How we assume there will be time later to say what matters.

As I write this, I don’t know where the words are going. I’m not shaping an argument. I’m not making a point. I’m just putting thoughts down before they scatter. Grief does that. It refuses structure. It moves in circles. It doubles back when you think you’re done.

What I keep returning to is how close I was. How close others weren’t. How narrow the margins are. And the question that follows every survival: why me?

There is no answer that satisfies. No explanation that fits cleanly. You can dress it up as fate or chance or purpose, but none of those words explain the quiet guilt that comes with being spared. You carry it whether you want to or not.

Somewhere along the way, you realize you are not walking this road alone. Friends you love are carrying their own weight. I think of KaZ In The World , of the way loss entered her life not as a theory but as a rupture. A brother gone. A bond that doesn’t loosen just because the world insists on moving forward. There are no right words for that kind of absence. You don’t try to fix it. You don’t wrap it in meaning. You just stand beside it. You sit in the quiet and let the silence be what it is. Because love doesn’t always speak. Sometimes it simply stays.

Today, I think of my Aunt Teresa.

I think of how she loved me. How she said my name with warmth, the way only family can. That sound still echoes. I can hear it clearly, even now. It’s strange how voices outlive bodies. How a single memory can feel more solid than the present moment.

I’m glad she will be surrounded today. That people will gather and remember her life, not just her death. The challenges she faced. The obstacles she carried. The way she built something meaningful anyway. That matters. It always has.

We reduce people too easily to their endings. We forget that a life is made of thousands of quiet acts of endurance. Showing up. Caring for others. Holding things together when no one is watching.

I think of those who left before her, too. My father. My grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. Friends. Strangers whose faces I still remember for reasons I can’t always explain. They line up behind us as we move forward, unseen but present.

Death doesn’t just take. It leaves traces. It changes the way you walk through the world. Once you’ve brushed against it, you notice things differently. Mornings feel sharper. Laughter feels heavier. Time stops pretending to be endless.

I used to think strength was about pushing forward without looking back. Now I think it’s about allowing yourself to feel the weight of what you’ve lost and still choosing to stay open. To keep loving. To keep showing up.

We don’t get to decide how long we’re here. But we do get to decide how we use the time we’re given. Whether we sit on the sidelines or step onto the field. Whether we run toward the moment that needs us or turn away.

That man on the baseball field didn’t know it would be his last day. My aunt didn’t know which conversation would be the final one. None of us ever do. That’s the bargain. That’s the cost of being alive.

So maybe the point isn’t to make peace with death. Maybe it’s to make peace with life. With its uncertainty. Its brevity. Its unbearable beauty.

Today, there will be prayers and stories and tears. There will be moments of silence where words fail. And somewhere in that gathering, love will still be present. Quiet. Unassuming. Undeniable.

That is what remains.

Not the fear. Not the questions. But the sound of someone saying your name with kindness. The memory of shared laughter. The proof that, for a while, you were here—and you mattered.

- Rinaldo

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About the Author

John Rinaldo writes Soul & Stories, a weekly publication centered on soul work, reflection, and the quiet process of becoming. He also hosts the live podcast Stories, Soul Work & Substack every Monday at 4 PM EST, where written ideas open into honest conversation.

He is currently working on The Hole: Forgotten in the Shadows, a documentary written and hosted by John Rinaldo and Hassan, telling the story of Italians who resisted and secretly helped smuggle Jews to safety during World War II.

John also continues his work through The Hard Truths, inspired by his book Earned, Not Given, where he explores identity, resilience, and the often-unseen experience of fathers.

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Other Ongoing Series

Learn more about The Hard Truths, inspired by Earned, Not Given, exploring identity, resilience, and the erasure of fathers—and The Hole: Forgotten in the Shadows, a documentary series on Italians who helped smuggle Jews to safety during World War II.