Dunno if it helps, but last time I ran Golden Sky Stories, the premise was “the players are tasked with helping a ghost transition via helping his lifelong friend to forgive him”. You need to have big stakes, but proportional to the characters themselves. What’s a big deal to those characters?

Then sell it, which seems to be the worry you have. Follow up: in the situations you describe, were you yourself sold on the idea that these situations were meaningful?