Familiar Seasons

1… 2… 3… 4… 5… How can there be so many fall shades of yellow?

I took in the exquisite fall colors surrounding me, as I sat at an interstate rest stop on the border of Minnesota.

Only yesterday, I was home, further south where the trees were just beginning to consider their fall attire. Today, I counted the big splashes of color embracing the air around me.

Less than six months ago, I celebrated spring, singing its promise through its full range of delicate greens, pinks and yellows. Suddenly, summer’s hot colors and glaring sunlight arrived with their intense yellows, reds, and deep green. Almost overnight, it’s fall. The trees become brightly colored. In preparation for the next step in the circle of seasons, their life force returns to its roots.

Then comes winter. The trees become barren. In my part of the world, the days are shrouded in gray for weeks at a time.

Each season brings its gifts. The greatest is the gift of rhythm and predictability. There is comfort in predictability. No matter what events spin around us, day still follows night. Spring leads to summer, which in turn becomes fall.

And then, there’s winter. The time of the year when the earth and her inhabitants hunker down and know in full faith that eventually spring will emerge, and the cycle begins again.

A part of me dreads the coming winter, with its memories of ice storms, snow, and power outages. Cold, gray days often seem interminable, just like their litany of scraping icy windshields and sprinkling salt on the sidewalks.

Still, winter brings its gifts. Even in winter there is growth. Underground, the tree roots prepare themselves to push life once again into the tree branches.

Life is there, but hidden, preparing to re-emerge. If it’s true for trees, it can be true for people too.

Seasons of Life

Ten years ago, my life changed. My husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Cancer is what happens when the rhythm of life is altered. What should be dependable is not.

He fought hard and I was his number one cheerleader, but it came to the point where we needed help. We moved closer to family. In that process, we left my dream job in my dream town and a home whose renovation was completed just before the diagnosis. As James slipped away at home surrounded by people who loved him, I knew that this move was essential for us both.

But that wasn’t all. Within a space of two years, my husband, my mother, my brother, and my dog died.

That’s when my winter began.

Just like the sap withdraws to protect its strength, I withdrew. My little bungalow home became my hermitage, my safe place, to recover from a wounded heart.

I’m not the same person I was when my husband and I moved into this bungalow seven years ago. It’s been five years since his death. Now something is finally beginning to stir in me.

Each Season Has Its Gifts

Winter will soon be here, and while it may seem bleak and long, I find solace in acknowledging this dormant time of quiet growth.

Like Sleeping Beauty after her decades-long nap, I’ve had my waking moment. With it comes an affectionate embrace of the past followed by release.

I miss those whom I’ve lost. I miss the job I loved and my wonderful former home. That home was for a different season of life. My little gray bungalow is what I needed for my season of winter and recovery.

My surroundings may soon be wrapped in winter, but I know in my heart that spring is already stirring within me. I look forward, with anticipation and hope, to whatever the next season may bring.