How Much Can Happen In A Week

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft

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For 365 days, I posted daily gratitude photos with Anya—Project Grateful, practicing the #TAG Method in real time with all of you. Day 361: my father died. Day 362: grateful for Anya holding my hand through thirty hours of travel. Day 363: grateful for snow—her first time seeing it, purple lips and wonder. Day 364: grateful for friends and family who drove through ice to say goodbye. Day 365: grateful for endings and beginnings—this photo of Mum and Anya, hand in hand, walking through a Polish cemetery where new relationships form even as we bury the old.

I finished Project Grateful at my father's funeral.

This is the story of that week.

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Eight days ago, I was sitting on a fifth-floor balcony in Bali, watching a squirrel we'd befriended eat cashews from the railing. The air was warm and salt-sweet. Anya was at the kids' club, learning Balinese phrases and painting batik. David was napping after our morning swim. I was reading my newly finished manuscript, "Where Faith Finds Us," making notes about chapters I wanted to enhance during editing, thinking: This has been such a fabulous holiday. Rest and writing and family time, all woven together perfectly.

The squirrel chattered at me, impatient for more nuts. I laughed and obliged.

It was our last day in Bali. Anya's first time there, and she'd loved every moment—the pools, the beaches, the kids' club where she'd made friends from five different countries. We'd paid extra for this trip, wanting it to be special. Beautiful. Memorable.

It was all of that.

How much can happen in one week?

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The flight home to Perth was straightforward. We even ran into David's brother Mark and his family at Denpasar airport—they'd been in Ubud while we were in Nusa Dua. Their flight was delayed; ours left half an hour before them. We waved goodbye, promising to catch up soon.

Leia and Gizmo nearly knocked us over when we walked through the door. Our little cream Shih-tzu Maltese and brown-ginger terrier mix thought we'd been gone forever, jumping and spinning and making those sounds that mean I missed you, I missed you, don't ever leave again.

Then the smell hit.

The living room rug was soaked with urine. Puddles in the hallway, the bathroom. Our house sitter had done her best, but the dogs—protesting our absence in the only way they knew how—had staged a rebellion. Two weeks was too long to be away from their people, and they'd made their feelings clear.

I spent the next two days cleaning. Vacuuming, mopping, throwing out the ruined rug. Washing, ironing, sorting. Getting Anya's things ready for school. Tidying the garden. Returning to normal after the beautiful escape of Bali.

Tuesday morning, I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for work. Anya was eating breakfast in the dining room, knowing she had to hurry—I was dropping her at holiday camp on my way to work.

My phone rang.

My mother. Calling from Poland.

It was just after 7 AM in Perth. Which meant it was very late at night in Poland—around midnight. Which meant something must have happened. My stomach dropped before I even answered.

"Agusia?" My mother's voice, broken. "Dad passed away."

I sat on the rim of the bathtub. The bathroom spun. The toothbrush was still in my hand, foam in my mouth, but I couldn't move. Couldn't process. Couldn't make the words make sense.

"When?"

"Just now. About half an hour ago."

“He was lying in bed,” she said. “He got up, said he wasn’t feeling well, and went to sit in his armchair. In front of the aquarium.” My father had kept an aquarium his whole life. The fish were his peace, his quiet joy, the one thing that never complicated itself. He sat down in his chair, looked at his fish, and he was gone.

My father was seventy-one. Argumentative, difficult, complicated. But for quite some time my conversations with him were good, peaceful—especially since Anya arrived in our lives. The last time we'd spoken, just before Bali, we'd talked about Anya, about her passport, about how much fun she'd have. For Grandparents Day on January 21st, just a few days ago, we'd made a video—Anya singing, smiling big for Babcia and Dziadek. We sent it over to them from Bali.

Now he was gone.

And I felt, beneath the shock and spinning head and disbelief, something unexpected: peace. A deep, settled knowing that he was in a better place with Jesus now. Safe. Loved. Free from the pain and anger that had shadowed his last years.

"Mum," I said, forcing my voice steady, "I need to find flights. Tell Cezar to help you rest. I'll call back when I know when we're coming." I was so happy she wasn't alone with this, that my brother was home.

"But sweetheart, the funeral—they do it within three days here. They won't wait—"

"Tell them they have to wait. Tell them I'm buying tickets now. I'm coming."

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David appeared in the bathroom doorway. I must have looked shattered because he didn't ask questions, just said: "Three tickets?"

We'd just spent so much on Bali. Just paid thousands more to replace our entire reticulation system. Had a garden gate to replace, bills stacking up. But we sat at the computer and searched anyway. Doesn't matter what connection, we just need to make it there on time.

Perth to Denpasar to Amsterdam to Gdansk. Leaving tomorrow—Wednesday afternoon, arriving Thursday noon Polish time, thanks to the time zone changes. Expensive. The kind of expensive that makes you swallow hard. But we had just enough. Barely. If we put everything together and didn't look too closely at what was left in our account.

A dear friend called within the hour. "I'm transferring three thousand dollars to your account," she said. "Just in case. It's there if you need it. No rush to pay it back."

I cried. Called work, crying, to explain that instead of returning after two weeks of annual leave in Bali, I was flying to Poland for my father's funeral.

Called Father Peter through the church secretary, asking for confession. He arrived within ten minutes.

"I have so many questions," I told him through tears.

He listened. Prayed with me. Helped me find that peace again—the knowing that my father was home now, truly home.

We packed frantically. Paid extra for three checked bags so we could bring David's suit, my heavy winter coat. I had warm clothes for Anya but I couldn't find any gloves or scarves in the local shops. It was thirty-five degrees in Perth—peak summer. It was minus-fifteen in Poland—depths of winter. Fifty-degree difference. We'd need clothes we didn't even own anymore.

Anya didn't fully understand. "Is Dziadek sick?" she kept asking.

"No, sweetheart. He's not sick anymore. He's with Jesus now."

"Will we see him?"

"We'll say goodbye to him. In Poland."

"In the snow?"

"Yes. In the snow."

Her eyes widened with something like wonder despite the sadness. She'd never seen snow.

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The flight was long and strange—grief does something to time, makes it stretch and compress simultaneously. Perth to Denpasar (back to Bali, the same airport we'd left just two days earlier). Denpasar to Singapore (unexpected fuel stop, deplaning and reboarding). Singapore to Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam, Anya saw snow for the first time.

We were deplaning, walking down the exterior stairs onto the tarmac, and she stopped dead. "Mummy! What is that?"

"Snow, darling. Real snow."

She reached out to touch the flakes falling onto the metal railing, her fingers turning red with cold. Her lips were already purple, shaking—we'd dressed her in everything warm we had, but it wasn't enough for minus-fifteen. She was very cold.

But she was jumping. Actually jumping with joy, trying to catch snowflakes, laughing despite the cold that bit through our inadequate layers.

"It's so cold, Mummy! So cold! But look! Look at it!"

Other passengers smiled as they hurried past, hunched against the wind. This little Thai-Australian girl discovering winter for the first time, delighted even while freezing.

We were supposed to catch a flight to Gdansk, then a minibus to Słupsk arriving at 2:30 PM—just in time for the 5 PM goodbye service at the chapel. The funeral home had originally scheduled it for 3 PM, but my mother had asked them to wait. The Holy Mass would be Friday at 7:30 AM, funeral at 12:50 PM.

But in Amsterdam, snow had delayed everything. We waited an hour for a push truck to clear the runway. I called Edytka—my best friend since we were fifteen, who'd driven from her house in Gdansk to meet us at the airport with warm clothes for Anya.

"We're delayed," I told her. "The minibus won't wait. They can only hold ten minutes."

"I'll make them wait," she said firmly. "I'll meet them at the bus stop. They won't leave without you."

We landed in Gdansk and ran. Through the airport, following signs to baggage claim, Anya between us, still excited about the snow despite her exhaustion.

We waited at the carousel. Watched it go round and round. Watched other passengers collect their bags and leave. Watched the screen finally flash: LAST BAG.

Our three suitcases—the ones with David's suit, my funeral clothes, everything we needed—weren't there.

Fifteen people stood around the carousel, equally luggage-less. A woman was crying. A man was shouting at a KLM representative in Polish.

"We have to catch a bus," I told the agent, hearing my voice crack. "My father's funeral. The goodbye service is in three hours. Our clothes are in those bags."

"I understand, ma'am. You'll need to file a claim."

Fifteen people ahead of us in line.

I called Edytka. "The luggage is lost. We're filing a claim. We can't leave yet."

"The bus just left. I held them for as long as I could but the driver finally said he had to go, they already waited 50 minutes, they were only allowed 10" she said. "Wait—give me a moment. I'll try something else."

She ran. Through the parking lot and icy pavements to the bus stop, found the driver of the next bus, explained the situation. That driver radioed the one who'd just departed. They turned the bus around. Came back.

Fifty minutes they waited. Fifty minutes for the delayed plane from Amsterdam and filling the claim (they promised delivery by 11 PM that night), grab the receipt, and run through the airport.

Edytka met us with bags full of hats, scarves, gloves—warm clothes from her daughter for Anya. She wrapped our child in layers while we stumbled onto the bus, apologizing to the other passengers who'd been waiting for so long, then they were on their way, then they came back!

The driver shrugged. "For a funeral? Of course."

The countryside flew past—white fields, ice-covered trees, everything frozen and beautiful and alien after Bali's green warmth. Anya's face was pressed to the window, watching Poland appear like a winter fairytale.

We arrived in Słupsk at 3:30 PM. The bus stopped at a bus stop, we gathered our things, stepped out onto the pavement, which looked like a curvy ice rink.

David's foot slipped on the ice. He went down hard, twisting his ankle, crying out in pain.

Minus-fifteen stings your cheeks within seconds. Burns your throat. Anya held my hand firm—she was cold, exhausted, and scared from seeing David fall.

My brother Cezar arrived five minutes later. Helped David into the car, drove us home through snowy streets I knew by heart but hadn't seen in six years.

Mum was at the door. Somehow smaller than I remembered. Older. Broken.

She pulled me inside. Her face lit up at the sight of Anya, whom she met for the first time. The house smelled like home—like childhood, like the particular scent of Polish houses in winter when everything is sealed tight against the cold.

Viola—Mum's younger sister, who'd come that morning and would stay through the funeral—was vacuuming. She stopped when she saw us, came over to embrace me, tears in her eyes. I have so many wonderful memories with her from my childhood days.

"You made it," she said. "Thank God, you made it."

Cezar left immediately to pick up pizza. Anya smiled when he came back with the boxes—her favourite food. We ate together around the kitchen table, exhausted and grateful for something warm and familiar.

Mum and Viola disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a black coat. My mother's, from years ago—it didn't fit her anymore. "Until your luggage arrives," Mum said, helping me try it on. It fit. Just fine. Thank God.

We had thirty minutes before the goodbye service. But before we left, I walked to the corner of the living room. His armchair stood empty, angled toward the aquarium, just as it always had been. Dad’s chair. The place he always sat. I looked at it for a moment, then sat down in it. The fish moved silently through the water—the same fish he’d tended for years, the same tank he’d sat in front of when he took his last breath. His photograph stood nearby, a black ribbon across the corner. I sat in his chair, looked at his fish, and said goodbye to him there, quietly, before the world came to say its louder goodbyes.

We were supposed to wear black. Formal clothes.

Instead, David wore a grey track jumper he had in his carry-on. Thank God he had a black jacket to put on. I wore my mother's coat over the one black dress I'd packed in my personal bag. Wore my UGG boots because they were all I had. My black boots were still somewhere in transit...

Anya was bundled in Edytka's daughter's clothes, but when she saw me wearing a dress, she wanted to wear a dress, too. I tried explaining that she would feel much warmer in the winter clothes from Aunty Edytka, but she insisted.

We drove to the funeral home. The chapel was cold—they don't heat these places much in winter, or maybe grief just makes you feel every degree of cold more sharply.

My father lay in the open coffin.

He looked nothing like himself. Nothing as I remembered. Cold. Strange. The face familiar but wrong, like a photograph that's been slightly overexposed, details washed out. His photograph with a black ribbon across stood in the corner of the room, a single red rose in front of it.

I stood there, exhausted from thirty hours of travel, and looked at my father's body while Anya held my hand, shaking from the cold, and asked quietly, "Is that Dziadek?"

"That was his body, sweetheart. But Dziadek himself is in heaven now."

"With Jesus?"

"With Jesus."

She seemed satisfied with that. Children understand more than we think.

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That night, I called the luggage tracking line every hour. No answer. No update. The tracker showed: IN TRANSIT.

At 11 PM—deadline they'd promised—still nothing.

We went to the Holy Mass in the same clothes the next morning. The church was the one where David and I had married seventeen years ago, where Father Mirek—my friend, the priest who'd married us—had come early to hear my mother's confession.

I'd sent him a message the day I learned my father died, asking him to join us. He'd said yes without hesitation. And when I asked if he could give Mum confession, he'd arrived half an hour before the Mass and simply waited in the freezing church.

I saw her before and after. The difference was physical—her shoulders straighter, her face softer, hope returning to her eyes. Confession and conversation with a friendly priest had been life-saving. Broken twig coming back to life.

The Mass was beautiful. Father Mirek spoke about resurrection, about peace, about every man finding rest in God's arms.

At 9 AM Friday morning, I finally got through to the lost luggage desk. "Your bags are in Gdansk. The courier will call you soon."

"The funeral is today at 12:50."

"We understand, ma'am."

At 10 AM Friday, the courier called. "I can deliver at 2:30 PM."

"The funeral is at 12:50. 2:30 PM is too late."

"This is the only time I can deliver. It is not my fault the airline lost your luggage."

I had no comments for that.

Many people came to the funeral—friends from decades ago, neighbours, colleagues, family who'd driven through snow and ice to pay respects. Many sent flowers and their condolences.

My father's urn—so small, so impossible to comprehend—was lowered into the frozen ground. The hole had been dug through ice and frozen earth. Everything white except the dark soil they'd piled beside the grave.

At the end, I took the microphone to thank everyone for coming.

I finished with: "See you soon, Tata."

At the wake after the funeral, the restaurant was warm and full. They served rosół—the traditional chicken soup with noodles, carrots, and fresh parsley. The smell was filling the restaurant, bringing comfort.

Anya ate everything. The whole bowl. Carrots, parsley, noodles, everything.

Several people commented. "How is it possible?" one woman asked. "Children don't eat parsley. Or carrots. We always have to prepare special portions for the little ones."

I smiled. "Anya eats everything because we eat everything. We teach her to eat what's served and say thank you for it. That's what we practice at home. That's what she knows."

Gratitude, even at the table. Even at a funeral. Even at seven years old.

Through all this, I saw Mum's joy that Anya had been there, that her smile warmed up the place and people's hearts.

The restaurant served us more traditional hot food: potatoes, pork with sauce, and a selection of salads. Very comforting and appreciated by all on this freezing afternoon.

Coffee and tea followed. Cake. Szarlotka and sernik - apple cake and cheesecake. Everyone grateful for the warmth, for the food, for the gathering that felt like a celebration despite the grief.

Or maybe because of it. Because we were celebrating my Dad being free now. Being home.

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The lost luggage arrived at the restaurant at 2:30 PM, exactly when the courier had promised. After the funeral. After we'd attended everything in borrowed clothes and UGG boots.

No one apologised.

We'd paid extra for those three checked bags. For the specific purpose of having proper funeral attire.

They never came when we needed them. No words or money would compensate for that, not that any of these were ever offered.

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That night, after everyone had gone home or to hotels, Edytka came to the house. We sat at the kitchen table—the same table where we'd done homework together at fifteen, where we'd planned my wedding, where we'd cried about her parents' deaths and my adoption struggles and everything life had thrown at us over thirty years of friendship.

We talked until 1 AM. About grief. About faith. About how much can happen in one week.

"You made it," she said. "That's what matters. You got here. You said goodbye."

"God doesn't care what we're wearing."

We laughed. The kind of laughter that happens after crying, that releases something knotted tight in your chest.

She'd stopped the minibus. Driven through snow twice to help us. Brought warm clothes for Anya. Sat with Father Mirek at the wake, old friends reconnecting.

Friends like that are beacons of light.

EPILOGUE

This is Monday. Three days after the funeral and the eighth day of the Bali – Australia – Poland story. The legal work begins now—documents for the notary, papers to sign, since my father left no will. My mother and brother need my signature for everything.

I'll fly home next week. Back to Perth, where it's summer and thirty-five degrees. Where Leia and Gizmo are waiting. Where work needs me. Where normal life continues as if nothing happened.

But something did happen.

Everything happened.

In one week, I went from reading my manuscript on a Balinese balcony to standing in Polish winter watching my father's urn lowered into frozen ground.

From feeding a squirrel cashews to seeing my child eat traditional Polish chicken soup with gratitude.

From wearing swimsuits to borrowing winter coats.

From peace to grief to peace again, but different now. Deeper. Earned through the chaos of lost luggage and twisted ankles and thirty hours of travel and making it just in time to say goodbye.

Faith isn't believing everything will be easy.

Faith is being held when the ground drops out from under you. When the phone rings at 7 on a Tuesday morning. When buses turn around, and friends run through parking lots, and priests wait in freezing churches. When the only clothes you have are wrong, and the only right thing is that you made it in time.

Faith is the deep, settled knowing that he's home now. Really home. Where there's no cold, no pain, no anger. Only love.

Pure love. So much of it.

How much can happen in one week?

Everything.

Everything that matters.

Everything that breaks you open and shows you what holds when everything else falls apart.

Chicken soup and friends who run. Children jumping in their first snow despite purple lips. Priests who wait. Dear friends who lend. Brothers who pick you up when you fall on ice. Mothers who need signatures because their husbands didn't leave wills.

Squirrels who want cashews on Balinese balconies while you read manuscripts about where faith finds us.

Because faith finds us everywhere.

In Bali and Poland.

In summer and winter.

In joy and grief.

In the fifty-degree difference between them.

Faith finds us in the chaos. In barely making it. In the borrowed clothes at funerals and saying goodbye when everything is wrong except the one thing that matters: you're there.

And you say: "See you soon, Tata."

Because that's not goodbye.

That's faith speaking.

See you soon.

When the snow melts, spring comes.

When grief settles into something you can carry.

When the paperwork is done and life continues because it does, it always does.

See you soon.

In the space between here and heaven.

In the knowing that you're finally, finally at peace.

See you soon.

How much can happen in one week?

Everything.

Absolutely everything.

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Day 365 of Project Grateful: Endings and Beginnings

My Mum and Anya - walking hand in hand through the snowy cemetery #grief #grateful #friendship #loss #faith

My mother walking with my daughter through Polish winter. A new relationship forming as we say goodbye to the old. Hand in hand. Moving forward.

This is what gratitude gives us—not protection from loss, but the ability to see what's being born even as we bury what's died. 

Project Grateful taught me that gratitude isn't about making life easy or pain-free. It's about training your eyes to see the gifts even in the hardest moments. The friend who stops the bus. The child who finds wonder in snow despite purple lips. The priest who waits in a freezing church. The grandmother and granddaughter who begin their relationship over a grave.

For 365 days, you walked this practice with me. You watched Anya grow. You practiced appreciation alongside us. And then you were there when day 361 brought death, when days 362-365 brought travel and snow and funeral and this—endings and beginnings, always both, always together. On day 361 my Dad died. That day I was grateful for my life. I would not be who I am now if it wasn't for my Dad. Rest In Peace, Dad.

Thank you for these 365 days. For your support, your comments, and your own gratitude practice that you shared with me. For being there through joy and now through grief.

The project is complete.

The practice continues.

Because what you focus on expands. I focused on gratitude, and even when the worst happened, I could still see the gifts. The people who showed up. The moments of grace. The relationships are forming even as we bury the dead.

That's the power of practice. That's the gift of #TAG—Thanksgiving, Appreciation, Gratitude. Action, Awareness, Feeling. The power of three that holds you when everything else falls apart.

Thank you for walking this year with me.

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With love and gratitude,

Agnieszka

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If you're grieving, if you're struggling, if joy feels impossible right now—I see you. The practice doesn't make pain disappear. It just helps you find your footing when the ground falls away. One breath. One moment. One thing to appreciate even in the chaos.

In two weeks, I'll share what it's really like when joy feels like a foreign language—when others' happiness feels distant, when your child laughs while you're grieving, when the world expects you to "move on" but your heart is still in Poland. And I'll show you how #TAG Method holds you even when you can't feel joy yet.

Come back in two weeks. I'll be here.