This Season I'm In

I know so many people are walking through their own version of this right now. Loss. Change. Watching our children grow up. Finding ourselves somewhere in between what was and what comes next. I hope something in these words brings you a little comfort, or simply reminds you that you’re not alone.

I haven’t written much this summer.

Not because there wasn’t anything to say, but maybe because, for the first time in a long time, I was too busy living it.

And somehow, despite feeling like summer flew by in the blink of an eye, it also feels like we slowed down.

Our youngest made the decision to step away from club soccer and play for his high school team. For years, club soccer shaped our family calendar. Weekends were games and tournaments and driving and hotels and packing and unpacking. There was always somewhere to be.

For the past 15+ years.

And suddenly, we had our weekends back.

Ours.

It turns out, we didn’t need to fill them.

We spent time outside. We took long drives and talked. We lingered over dinner. We found ourselves enjoying moments that, in another season of our lives, we might have rushed right through.

And, this was the summer we finally put in the pool.

It was finished only two weeks ago, and we've been enjoying it almost every day since.

The landscaping isn't done yet. We're still dreaming about it—flowers and shrubs, what goes where, what will bloom when, what will eventually make this space feel like ours.

And as I've been thinking about all of it, I've been thinking about my parents.

Gardening was their passion.

They loved flowers. They understood seasons and planting and watching something grow and change..

I wish they could be here to see it.

I wish they could sit beside me and tell me what they would plant.

I wish I could see my dad's questionable eye towards where I planted something.

I wish I could see my mom sitting in the garden, reading her book and smiling.

I can picture both of them so clearly.

But for now, it's unfinished.

And somehow, I'm okay with that.

Because I feel like that's where I am right now, too.

Still figuring it out.

Maybe especially because this summer also marked one year since my dad died.

A year.

And I’ve thought a lot about how different the losing my dad has felt from losing my mom.

With my mom, grief arrived long before she died. Alzheimer’s meant losing pieces of her over many years. There was the woman she had been, the woman she was becoming, and the mother I kept searching for somewhere in between. I learned that you could grieve someone who was still sitting right in front of you.

By the time she died, I had been saying goodbye for a very long time.

My dad was different.

His decline was long, too. Ten years of dialysis. Years of caregiving, coordinating, worrying and making decisions. There were difficult conversations about quality of life, and I knew our time together was becoming limited.

But he was still Dad.

There was still a phone call to make. A house to go to. Something to coordinate. Something to fix. Something to worry about.

And then one morning, there wasn’t.

His death didn’t come with the same slow disappearance I experienced with my mom.

It came with a different kind of silence.

With Mom, I was learning how to live without the person she used to be.

With Dad, I was learning how to live without the person who was still, in so many ways, my dad.

I don’t think one grief is harder than the other.

They’re just different.

Because we don’t grieve everyone the same way.

We don’t love everyone the same way.

And maybe this first year without Dad has taught me that grief isn’t always about feeling the same ache every day.

Sometimes it’s simply noticing who isn’t here to witness the life that is still happening.

Dad didn’t see the pool.

He won't be giving me starter plants.

He won't see the garden when it finally takes shape.

But somehow, I know I'll feel them in it.

And maybe that's what I'm learning in this season.

That life doesn't really slow down.

Our children keep growing.

The seasons keep changing.

The people we love don't stay forever.

But every once in a while, life gives us a little space between all the things we thought we had to do.

And if we're lucky, we notice.

This summer, we noticed.

We sat by the pool.

We took long drives and talked.

We worked in the yard and dreamed about the garden.

We had nowhere else to be.

And maybe that was the gift.

Not slowing life down.

Just having enough space to actually be present for it.

My boys are growing up. They're becoming more independent, making their own decisions, finding their own paths.

And I am somewhere in the middle of all of it—watching them grow, carrying the people I've lost, and still trying to figure out who I am in this next chapter.

Maybe that's why the unfinished garden feels so fitting.

It doesn't need to be finished.

Life doesn't. need to be figured out.

The next chapter doesn't need to be written yet.

There is still room to plant something new.

Still room to change our minds.

Still room to grow.

September is here.

The garden will eventually change.

The pool will become part of the landscape.

My boys will keep moving into whatever comes next.

And I will keep learning how to let the seasons change without wishing them back.

For now, I'm just trying to be here for this one.

To notice it.

To appreciate it.

To let it unfold.

Because this is the season I'm in.

And I dont' want to miss it.

Love you more.