Meeting Yourself Without Your Person

If there was ever a season of transitions—a season when we’re most likely to see and feel what it means to be ever-evolving versions of ourselves–I think time of year might be it.

‘Tis the season of graduations and weddings, of ending and beginnings. 

‘Tis the season of celebrating how we’ve grown as we approach the fullness of summer, and perhaps even anticipating who we might be in the fall, all while letting ourselves evolve into people who take more pauses from “real life” as we step into the languid energy of warmer months and barbecues and beach vacations.

It’s a season of goodbyes, and sometimes hellos, and often a sense that things are ever-shifting.

This time of year reminds me that we are forever meeting and evolving into different versions of ourselves.

Today is my son’s seventh birthday. In prior years, my sister’s absence from birthdays has felt more concrete: the pang of a missing phone call; the absence of a perfectly curated birthday package; the awareness that there is one less person on the family text thread.

Yet in the last couple of weeks there’s been a sadness humming in the background for me, one that has felt different than the previous two birthdays without her.

This time, I’m realizing, it’s the sadness that comes with knowing that my sister will never know this seven-year-old version of my son. She will never know her nephew who just got his first pair of glasses last week, and whose adult teeth are filling in the gap where his baby teeth once were, and who has become both a piano player and an independent reader since last year’s candles were blown out.

It’s the sadness that comes with knowing that she’ll never know today’s version of my daughter, the one who is on her way to middle school and whose interests have shifted from horses and Disney princesses to Taylor Swift and graphic novels.

Heck, it’s even realizing she will never know this version of me, the one who since her death has opened a therapy practice and doubled her houseplant collection and probably made several questionable fashion choices.

In grief, we often say, “I wish they could see this.” But I wonder instead if what we’re feeling is, “I wish they could see me.” 
I wish they could see this version of me. I wish this version of me could be known and loved by them in the same way that past versions of myself were seen and known and loved by them.

In this season of graduations, weddings, first communions, and college acceptances, we are both saying goodbye and saying hello to different versions of ourselves. 

We are meeting ourselves in places without our people, sometimes without the one person we most wish could be there to see and celebrate who we’re becoming.

Each new chapter in our own story–each evolution of who we are and who we’re becoming–is also often accompanied by a new chapter in our story of grief

As with everything in grief, there are no tidy solutions here.

And also as with everything in grief, we start with acknowledgement. We start with naming and making room for what we feel.

And when and where we can, we create ways for our loved ones to meet us and to share in who we’re becoming. For me, this often takes the form of writing letters to my sister, but it could also be talking to your person, connecting with others who loved them, or inviting in their presence by lighting a candle, listening to music, wearing a piece of jewelry, or visiting their favorite place.

As you meet ever-evolving versions of yourself, may those many versions of you continue to find ways to feel seen and known and loved.

As always, take gentle care of yourself.