Seasons

It almost seems cruel how quickly the summer turns to autumn, turns to winter, turns to spring. Each ending bringing anticipation for a new beginning.

Last year, it was Dickens' words that spoke of our hearts' desires. Hope.

Heart full of sorrow.
Hope for tomorrow.

I reflect back on all of the yesterdays that were to be our tomorrow. The days have too quickly passed by. And I glean through them, finding the moments that have helped us to endure. Giving us pockets of air to catch our breath inside the intensity of all of it.

I read over so many words I wrote. About miracles and how desperately we still needed them even after the one we wanted most could not be granted-- the little miracles of kind acts, and the presence of loving, caring, compassionate people who would let us be wrapped in their arms.

I am an impatient soul. I have good reason, though. And I know that there are others who understand.

"A person in need cannot wait to be comforted. His time is today: his pain is now; his loneliness is immediate. And any would-be helper who delays a compassionate act may find that he has come upon the scene far too late to justify anything more than a wry smile of hurt indifference from the object of his belated concern." (emphasis added; JoAnn Jolley, “What I Learned about Compassion,” Ensign, Mar 1980, 26)

How can it be that time races forward, and still goes so slowly to make the heart ache for an eternity ahead that seems so out of reach? Too long until we are reunited with our dear loved ones whom we just miss so terribly?

Time is a thief. I wrote of Time even before I knew that Bridget would come to fill a measure of it. When my heart was still tender with the grief of Dominic's death:

Father Time
(Thursday, February 09, 2006)

"And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up!"
~Charles Dickens (Dombey And Son, Chapter 18)

Grief is an interesting journey. It is certainly a very personal thing. Sometimes univeral. There are so many euphemisms. Sometimes I begin to believe that time will heal. That life goes on. There is some comfort and some truth in these words at times. Sometimes I look back and I think about how much has changed. I wonder if I'd be aware of the distance in time from then until now had we not had to say goodbye.

In grief, the passage of time has been an insult. Four years ago I was grieving. It was okay for me to have those feelings, because the time that had passed since we buried my son could still be counted in single digit months. I recall these days four years ago. The mockery of time burned the memory of those days into my mind. Time was heavier since I last held my son than all the days I had to hold him. Slipping away from me was another chance for life.

In grief, the passage of time has been an enemy to my memory. How I wish my recollection could be as crisp as the bitterness. The sharpness of each moment diffuses as a new moment passes. Another euphemism. It's only a moment. Only a moment I wish I could have again, and remember. Yes, I have pictures, and there is reminiscence that is sweet, yet the memories are sometimes bitter.

In grief, the passage of time has been so bitter. If people hadn't already turned away from their discomfort with death, the bitterness was their justified retreat. It was time to move on. How I wish the strength of the sweetness from those memories could prevail. I have a sense of the sweetness. It is what I long for. It is what I miss. And it is why I grieve. I don't have, I can't have, what it is I had and what I want. Who was there to mourn with me? Well, time had gone on and their lives had gone on, and it was about time for me to move on as well. Bitterness was a friend when I had none. A shield to their unwilling rejection. Oh, yes, they pitied me. They could feel the sorrow at a distance. They just didn't want to be weighted by it. Weighted by me.


It's been four years. Four years, four months, three weeks, and four days. It's not okay to feel these things now. Intensity weakens. That is true. Time is what robbed me, and it has never healed me. Softening comes with recognition that expectations won't be met. That time is only a lower law, preparatory, that will be swallowed up in eternity. Father Time has his seasons, but The Father is endless. My heart remorses for the love that I should have felt so intensely as to sear every moment into clear recollection, that I was too distracted from feeling. Oh, yes, it was there. So deep and surely there.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
1 Cor. 13: 12

I will know that love again. For this moment in time, I will endure. I will carry on. I will grieve.

Today it has been eighteen long months from when we buried our little Bridget. Dominic was buried seven years and six months ago yesterday. Last year, Spring came to us on March 20th. And again, this year, Spring arrives the same day. How strange when things are so different and still the same.

I am still waiting for a new season. One of more glory than we have ever known here.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8