As the crisp wind starts and the pumpkins pile on porches, the new season brings a rush of change to my heart. Change is a tricky thing. It’s opportunities wrapped in anxiety. It’s so much more than poofy vests and pumpkin spice for those hurting. It’s a reminder of the last fall or what may have been your last fall.

For us, it’s a reminder of the beginning of the end. The start of the slowdown for my husband.

I remember the first year after he died and we made it to The Pumpkin Patch, something I’d dreamed of doing as a family but Joe was just too sick to make it. Watching my little juggle pumpkins pulled at my heart.

Last night, I listened to the same girl say her goodnight to the fall filled Indiana sky.

“Tomorrow is my first field trip daddy. Mom is coming with me. Can you please try and come too?” She pleaded with the clouds.

She pivoted to run back into the house and up the stairs as my heart sank.

“Well, what’d he say?” I asked.

“He’s going to do his best.” She answered without missing a beat.

And he will do his best, like he always did. He pushed through to smile for his overly zealous wife who just wanted to have a normal Halloween in the midst of all the cancer and all the sickness. He put on that owl hat and did his best to smile for the camera. He’d head to the sky just a few weeks later.

A change of seasons, stirs up the emotions like the leaves that whip across the road.

I asked my counselor this week if it’s healthy, if it’s okay my little girl talks to the sky. It’s something she’s done since she was a baby but I often worry, am I doing grief right? 

He said a relationship doesn’t have to be sitting in the room with you. She has a relationship with her daddy, even if it’s shouting to the clouds.

And as the seasons change and I watch that love grow and expand. I’m letting myself feel the cool breeze and remember.