This is my season of grief and loss. And I’m not doing a good job processing. In January I lost the companionship of my favorite person. I cried for 7 straight days, and then once per day for the remaining month. I was definitely processing. Four months later my sister called and said, “If you don’t get on a flight, you won’t see dad before he dies.” “Dies?” What? Didn’t he go to the hospital for dehydration? In January they talked about “last rites” when he had pneumonia and covid, but he pulled through. I flew out. Three hours later, with a daughter at the four corners of his body, he passed.

Eight weeks later my sister called again, sobbing uncontrollably. What? What? Is it mom? “No, it’s Glenis. She was killed in a motorcycle accident.” Glenis? Our cousin, our sister, the one my dad helped raise? I walked into the guest bedroom and looked up and said, “What is going on? Why?”

Eight weeks later and it’s her birthday. Yesterday. I cried a lot. I wrote a post to my small friends-only following and when I posted and reread it, I sobbed. And that’s my cousin. My dad got wedged between caring for my mother who had her own medical crises and the motorcycle accident. So my papi is on a shelf. I can’t touch that one yet. I wear his watch most days. I don’t think about him and when I do, it’s because I’m going to call him. I forget that he’s gone.

Reading my scriptures is mostly a daily habit. I’m sometimes reluctant or not in the mood. I do one verse. After my a.m. walk, I got on my yoga mat and looked up the weekly reading in Come Follow Me. We’re in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. I jump to Ecclesiastes 1-3. Chapter 3:1-8 is famous, “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 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…”

Aside from not mourning well, I’m also feeling guilt, which is not a common emotion for me. I feel like I’m not utilizing my time well, not productive enough. Part of that is the fact that I’m retired and don’t have a job to provide requirements, demands and structure. Which is so funny that I feel guilt that I no longer have to abide others’ agendas and in exchange they give me money.

“Keep the change, you filthy animal.”

I have had my career and I was diligent in putting money away and investing in order to leave the workforce at a young-enough age. I was not mathematical about it. I just “maxed everything out” retirement-wise, avoided debt, and bought a home. It worked. Now my money makes money and it has a job, and it serves me. And that’s okay. And a blessing. My job didn’t give me my worth. I had worth because I am, and because I’m a daughter of a loving Heavenly Father. Same with all of us.

I did, however, find this scripture in Ecc 3:13, “And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”

I am enjoying the gifts of my labor, and that is how God would want it. Also, it’s probably okay for me to take a month or two and live a very basic life–I don’t have to be producing or performing for anyone or any reason. I can take care of my home, my body, my mind, and visit my mom. Occasionally see friends and enjoy them.

Let me end with this. We are not meant to always be happy. We don’t grow enough, we don’t deepen enough, we don’t develop compassion without grief or trial. Yes, our stable state can be peace and happiness, but we need to embrace the seasons that are challenging, and not scramble and resist, trying to “not go there.” Go there. Be there. It doesn’t have to be long. Deep pain sometimes burrows and erupts, but the eruption is like a volcano, spectacular but time-bound. It cannot keep going, it does not keep going, but when the gift of the eruption comes, try to let it happen without interference.

And as final wisdom, “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” Ecc 7:3-4.