The Acceptance Project | Personal Growth, Self-Care, & Emotional Health
Sep 29, 2026 · 42 min · 10 segments
Someone who used to join friends for dinner suddenly starts eating alone. They stop going to activities they once enjoyed. They become quieter, avoid certain people, or simply seem to pull away. It…
Bryan GrossHost
[upbeat music] Now, before we go any further, I wanna, I wanna tell you a story about someone, and we're gonna call her Louise.
Her story was shared with me, and I, I even said I would change her name and some of the details that might identify her or her family.
But what happened to Louise is real, and I don't want to start her story in a care facility.
I want to take you back years before that to a Sunday afternoon, because before Louise became the woman sitting alone beside a window waiting for someone to visit, she was the woman everybody came home to.
There was always something simmering on the stove, something in the oven, and probably somebody walking through the kitchen lifting the lid off of a pot that had absolutely no business lifting.
It'll be ready when it's ready." She'd probably been up since early that morning because Sunday dinner wasn't something you just threw together at Louise's house.
There were potatoes to peel, rolls warming in the oven, gravy on the stove, and a pot of green beans that, in a way, Louise had started preparing months ago.
She'd picked those beans herself, sat and broke them by hand, and canned them away for later.
And this was the later she'd been saving them for, a Sunday afternoon with her family gathered around her table.
Somewhere on the counter, of course, there was a dessert that everybody had already been warned at least twice not to touch.
Outside, you could hear the grandchildren laughing and yelling and somebody accusing somebody else of cheating, and that screen door opening and closing all afternoon.
No game outside was complete without somebody racing through Louise's kitchen just long enough to grab a cookie or one of Grandma's famous gingerbread men before darting out the next quickest exit, usually with another grandchild right behind them trying to get there first.
Now, out back was this big old tree with a tire swing hanging from one of its branches.
They'd take turns pushing one another higher and higher until Louise eventually looked out the kitchen window and yelled something about somebody breaking their neck.
Then she'd shake her head and smile to herself and go right back to getting Sunday dinner on the table.
Now, every once in a while, though, Louise would stop what she was doing and look through that window above the kitchen sink.
[upbeat music] Now, before we go any further, I wanna, I wanna tell you a story about someone, and we're gonna call her Louise.
Her story was shared with me, and I, I even said I would change her name and some of the details that might identify her or her family.
But what happened to Louise is real, and I don't want to start her story in a care facility.
I want to take you back years before that to a Sunday afternoon, because before Louise became the woman sitting alone beside a window waiting for someone to visit, she was the woman everybody came home to.
There was always something simmering on the stove, something in the oven, and probably somebody walking through the kitchen lifting the lid off of a pot that had absolutely no business lifting.
It'll be ready when it's ready." She'd probably been up since early that morning because Sunday dinner wasn't something you just threw together at Louise's house.
There were potatoes to peel, rolls warming in the oven, gravy on the stove, and a pot of green beans that, in a way, Louise had started preparing months ago.
She'd picked those beans herself, sat and broke them by hand, and canned them away for later.
And this was the later she'd been saving them for, a Sunday afternoon with her family gathered around her table.
Somewhere on the counter, of course, there was a dessert that everybody had already been warned at least twice not to touch.
Outside, you could hear the grandchildren laughing and yelling and somebody accusing somebody else of cheating, and that screen door opening and closing all afternoon.
No game outside was complete without somebody racing through Louise's kitchen just long enough to grab a cookie or one of Grandma's famous gingerbread men before darting out the next quickest exit, usually with another grandchild right behind them trying to get there first.
Now, out back was this big old tree with a tire swing hanging from one of its branches.
They'd take turns pushing one another higher and higher until Louise eventually looked out the kitchen window and yelled something about somebody breaking their neck.
Then she'd shake her head and smile to herself and go right back to getting Sunday dinner on the table.
Now, every once in a while, though, Louise would stop what she was doing and look through that window above the kitchen sink.
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