From Grief To Grace: How Thin Spaces Shaped A Wellness Practice
Thin spaces are those rare moments when life feels hushed, luminous, and unbearably real. For us, the shape of that feeling came through Estes Park, a mountain town that turned grief into guidance and presence into practice. As co-owners of a wellness clinic, we didn’t set out to build a brand around a Celtic idea. We stumbled into it by living through cancer, airports, late-night flights, and neighbors who showed up with courage and casseroles. The thin space idea gave words to something our bodies already knew: when you slow down and lean into the hard, the sacred shows up in ordinary places. It’s mountain light, a hospital rail, a whisper that says keep going, you’re not alone.
Naming our clinic Thin Space Wellness wasn’t a marketing move. It was a map. A friend shared an article about a man who paused to pray in a breezeway between the ICU and the NICU, his hand locked on a railing while he walked between his dying wife and his newborn son. That image lodged in our hearts because we had spent months in our own breezeways—between states, between decisions, between courage and collapse. We learned that presence is not passive. It means standing in the doorway of uncertainty and choosing to stay. That choice shaped how we practice care: less rush, more listening, and the belief that people need both skilled action and a safe place to breathe.
Caregiving for a parent with pancreatic cancer is a master class in logistics and love. There were chemo schedules in two states, emergency procedures, and a mother who refused wheelchairs and insisted on dignity. Thin spaces appeared in small mercies: a text at the right time, a seat on an impossible flight, neighbors who set up TPN when home health wasn’t available. Community became medicine. We saw how healing is social and spiritual, not only clinical. When systems break, people step in. That truth informs our approach with patients: teach them to recruit support, name what matters, and build rituals of calm even in chaos.
Grief didn’t arrive all at once. It came in blizzards and quiet rooms, in the Stanley Hotel doing our wedding for almost nothing, and in mountain roads where we pulled over just to twirl in the snow. Those moments weren’t escapism; they were oxygen. Joy is not the opposite of sorrow—it’s the companion that helps you carry it. Years later, that same contrast guided Kim through the ICU with her father. She sang, she prayed by a moss-draped cemetery, and found a peace that didn’t erase pain but gave it shape. Acceptance didn’t mean giving up; it meant telling the truth about what love was asking of us next.
If you’re in your own sandwiched season—kids on one side, aging parents on the other—there’s a path through that doesn’t numb or sprint. Try three habits. First, name your breezeways: the literal places you pause each day. Touch a counter, a steering wheel, a stair rail, and breathe for ten seconds. Second, borrow belief when yours is thin; let a friend, a neighbor, or a nurse hold one corner of your hope. Third, honor stubborn dignity. Ask people how they want to be helped, not just how you want to help. In those micro-choices, thin spaces open. They won’t fix everything, but they will steady your feet.
We built a wellness practice that treats labs and loneliness, protocols and meaning. Estes Park taught us that nature widens the soul’s margins; community holds the middle; and small, faithful actions move the story forward. If you’ve ever felt time pause at a bedside or on a mountain ridge, you’ve been there too. Tell someone your thin space story. In the telling, you’ll hear the throughline of courage, and someone else will hear permission to breathe. That’s how healing spreads: one quiet, holy moment at a time.