Seasons of Our Life

Remind me, when the sun warms my cold bones, that life has not always been this way. Let its warmth show me that once, the cold did not reach so deeply. Let the wind whisper in my ear of better days, happier times, least I forget. Have the colors of the rainbow shoot far into the sky and brighten a grey, empty world least I forget the true colors of life. The falling rain matches the tears that flow so quietly, it's gentleness a memory of years gone by. Thunder cannot match the silence that reigns here, within the grieving heart, as dark clouds roll across the violent, angry sky. Show me a light to lead me through the dark hours for I have forgotten the way.

The world comes back to you in slow, uneven steps. One day, you find yourself listening to the call of the doves, or whoop of the loon, and smile without knowing you have smiled. Right now, you are in the winter of your life. It matters not that the sun is warm or the rain is gentle. It matters not that double rainbows brighten the sky. The flowers bloom, but their colors are washed out, their scent barely noticeable. Everything you once knew, all that you held as truth, has become as nothing. Your bones are constantly cold regardless of the true temperature. It is the winter of loss but instead of being white as snow, it is as grey as ash. Loss holds us in it's cold, uncaring arms as time stops here. It seems endless until it starts moving again, and then... it moves too fast.

Our inner seasons are mixed up. They do not come in orderly fashion. They are mostly winter and fall, spring and summer are a long ways off though we do get a glimpse of them now and then. In our first year, everything is 'firsts.' It is not just anniversaries, birthdays, holidays. It also the first time you heart their song, walk into a restaurant you went to with them, a sunrise and sunset, the changing of the seasons. Year one is so full of firsts that you have no room to take a breath, to think, to move all you can do is feel and cry. You think you should be moving forward but your emotions take you backward. You loose hope of moving at all never realizing that you've been moving all along. We all have to go through this, to deny and hide from it only delays it, makes it worse when it breaks through. Days blend together, memories are bleary, all except for 'that' day, our day of loss. This is our winter.

Year two may be harder for some as they come out of that numbness that they did not know was there. How is it possible to hurt even more than you already have? It is actually hurting different, this Fall Season of our soul. It is showing us that not only is life short and unexpected, but it is also so very unfair. Our loss is so unfair, wrong, out of tune with the world. We feel that parents should go before children, that it would be the natural order of things. It is not, death has no order sad to say. It has no reason as far as we can see, does not discriminate. It is a 'Catch 22,' time. If we go before those we love, we condemn them to the sorrow we live even as we can hardly carry this burden. There is no order to death. This Fall Season keeps falling back to winter, still it comes back again for longer periods of time.

We get longer glimpses of spring and summer. We start smelling the scent of growing things as the spring rains wash away the ash, a little at a time. The ash comes back, maybe not as thick as before. We see the green shoots pushing up through the bare ground, reminding us that life does go on, love is eternal. The season of growing intrudes on our grief, we push it away, it comes back. A time comes when we have to acknowledge it for it is not going to go away for very long. We have stood still long enough. When is long enough? When your heart tells you so. Moving forward does not mean forgetting our loved ones, they travel with us now. It just means that it is time to live again. You will never live as you once did, or feel as you once did, but you can have a meaningful life. The tears will still fall, the loss will always be there, but the days will not stay grey. The colors will return.

I don't know yet what the summer of this life is, I have not gotten there yet. Everything in its time. I hope that it brings renewal, hope, joy. We are constantly changing, not like that sudden change, but slowly. We build a new world for ourselves, one that we can find comfort in because we built it. We have moved on from people who should not be in our lives anymore to ones who fit well with who we are becoming. We cherish our memories, and learn to live in the moment for we already know, first hand, that the future is so uncertain. Seasons come and go, life comes and goes. I think I want to leave behind good memories for those who love me. 'Forever Mom.'