Life has seasons that mimic the earth’s seasons: times of abundance, times of cultivation. Fall is a season of loss, but it shows you up front what you’re losing. That’s what makes it so sweet in its melancholy…
Seasons of loss, like the colder seasons, are the hardest ones to endure, even if you logically understand they won’t last forever. I once heard an interview with an artist whose father died at the height of his creative success. He was really close with his dad, and spent the next few years in a tense combination of obligatory gratitude and overwhelming sadness … He was dwelling in loss, running his fingers through it. He was a witness to his own grief. It’s really hard to sit with loss; I’m doing it now. My dad died in 2015.
But it takes so much discipline to resist numbing oneself and skipping quickly to the next season. It’s even hard to watch someone else sit in it; hearing someone say “I’m hurting” calls for immediate action. It’s lot easier to tell someone, “Things will get better,” “Look on the bright side,” or “Everything happens for a reason!,” rather than “I can’t imagine what you’re going through – I’m so sorry.”
Just like seasons of the year, seasons of life don’t have a finish line… Now in September, I dwell in both the “actual fall” and “life fall” seasons of loss. I’m trying to learn from the calendar to make sense of life. It’s not easy. It’s also not my whole life; it’s a season. And there’s a ton of beauty in it.
–Am I There Yet? – Mari Andrew