There is Joy and Pain in Every Season of Motherhood

A photo of the winter sky — taken by my daughter from her bedroom window about six weeks before she died

The season of my daughter’s death is winter. It is, in fact, the darkest part of winter. Four years ago, Ana’s oncologist told us she was terminal. That was sometime in the summer of 2016. By January of 2017, it became apparent that she would not live to reach her 16th birthday in May. As the weeks grew colder, the weather harsher, and the landscape increasingly grey, she withered and faded and ebbed.

She died two days after the spring equinox so I guess that, technically, spring is the season of her death. But so much of her dying happened during winter, that I’m able to give spring a pass. Plus, spring is the season of her birth. It’s the season I became a mother (twice over). First in May of 2001 and then in April of 2004.

Even so, early spring is hard for me. As the world begins greening and birds start the busy process of nesting, I’m reminded that Ana died right before things began to bloom. But as spring pushes forward, the bleakness of winter — and grief — fades.

I ride these cycles of grief and motherhood year after year, enjoying autumn, dreading winter, anticipating spring, and spending summer in a state of contemplation — on trails, watching birds, and getting lost in the long bright days that inevitably grow darker and shorter.