Octobers

The color was sweet. I felt it as much as I saw it—the way the amber notes wrapped around the light and painted a small vista of a sunrise. It reminded me of the leaves in October and the hours, days, and years of every October before it. The chrysanthemums are opening slowly, and they make me reminisce. They’re the color of life. The color of October.

This has always been my favorite time of year. Always. But today, I dread it. I walked through the store disappointed in the Halloween decorations, the lackluster decorative pumpkins, the fall foliage. Where the amber colors used to be a signal for a beautiful season, today it only reminds me of death. It only signals what I’m missing, what today means, how every October will never be the same. Especially today.

I’ve never wanted to skip ahead more than I do right now. I turn 35 this week, and I’ve never wanted to ignore a birthday more in my life. I’ve never wanted to pretend something isn’t happening more than right now. All I want is something that’s impossible—another day to hug my mom and tell her everything that has happened since she’s been gone. Her birthday is Wednesday and mine on Saturday. What I wouldn’t give for another minute. Just one more minute.

We’ve always shared this. I’ve always had her. Thirty-four years of shared moments and memories, and it feels like bone-deep sorrow to recognize that I won’t get another. All I want is one more.

I see how this grief is hard to look at. Losing someone we love is supposed to hurt, and this one hurts exponentially more everyday because the love was and is expansive. I say that to my kids all the time: we are so sad because we loved her so much. But it can be sharp, too. Like a glare from the sun that stings our eyes and makes us want to look away. It can be overwhelming and shocking, and it feels tortuous to face it. Other days it isn’t. Other days it looks like every other October.

I come back to writing because I don’t know what else to do with the pain. It just is. It’s an ache that dulls and heightens, rising and falling like the tides in the ocean. I write and I write with the hopes that something will return to normal, but it’s like everything has been broken apart. I’m picking up one piece at a time, trying to recognize it and put it back where it goes. But it won’t go back, because that’s what happens. The picture has changed. The puzzle pieces have been reconfigured, and I have to figure out a new place for each one to go. So I write and write, hoping to dull the edges and find what fits. Nothing fits. Nothing is normal because everything has changed. And I’m sitting surrounded by puzzle pieces I don’t recognize.

Years ago, I used to teach and remind people that we are meant to lament. The Bible is full of lamentations. David does this in Psalms. It is outrageously normal to grieve, question, and fall apart. It is biblical to feel sorrow. To weep.

And I hate that I understand David’s Psalms more than I ever have before. For three months, I’ve been reading his words. Again and again. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit. The Lord is a deliverer and redeemer. He hears me. He hears me. And at the same time I question Him. I ask Him why. I beg Him to comfort me. I weep and grasp for peace. I wrestle with what I don’t understand because grief does not follow any rules. It consumes and changes and exists, and it shatters so much of what I thought I knew. I hate that I understand the significance of grief. It is, dare I say, essential to the Christian faith. With it, I’ve uncovered my deepest need for God. Because of it, I will never be the same, and neither will my faith. It is like a thorn in my side, but now I understand—it is possible to live with the deepest ache, and it is possible for God to still be good.

So I look for the October colors anyway. Because I know I’ll find my mom there—in the chrysanthemums, the sunsets, the changing leaves. I know that life and joy will return as sure as a fall sunrise, and I know that even when I wish for the impossible, my deepest sadness is not ignored. I miss my mom today more than most days before. I miss the anticipation that used to come with her birthday and mine. I miss what was, and I miss who I was, too. So I look to God, who can miraculously bring radiance on dark days and nights. I look to God because I know I am not alone. In the warm, amber colors of October days, God is somehow deeply near and attentive.

I’m learning that God’s love is as persistent as grief. His love is consuming like heartache. His peace is a shelter with waves of sadness. Grief is familiar to Him like love because they are so similar. Grief is all the love bottled up that continues on after the ones we love are gone. It is ongoing love, and if my faith has taught me anything, it is that God’s love is just as ongoing.

And I am swimming in it, surrounded by love. It is the grief, changing and shifting with the seasons, developing into autumn hues and reminders of Octobers. This is the year I celebrate without you, Mom, and I don’t want to. I would rather skip ahead, but I know I don’t want that either. From here on out, I’ll see you in every October and every chrysanthemum and every fall. In every shade of amber. In every birthday.

And I’ll keep whispering to you, telling you about what you’ve missed, crying over memories I forgot existed. It’s just the ongoing love, and I’m so glad it keeps going. We miss you, more every day, often and persistently. But I’ll keep seeing you—in every October. In every sunrise and every sunset. Because October has always been ours, hasn’t it? It always will be.

It always will be.