On Loss

In June the weather became warm enough to open my bedroom windows and to leave them open for sleep. Every morning at 5 a.m. I was awoken by the sound of the birds. They seemed so loud. Some mornings I'd get up and with frustration close the window. Other mornings I'd pull a pillow over my head. After a while I simply grew accustomed to lying in bed for 30 minutes listening to their sounds before drifting back to sleep.

Now it is August. The temperature is warm and the days, though not as long as they were in June, are still long enough but there is something about the daylight that has changed. It is not as brilliant. The Sun no longer passes directly overhead and the landscaping along the back of the house, which just a week ago received full Sun in the late afternoon, now remains in shadow.

Restless,  I turned the other day to look at the clock next to my bed. It was 5am. I wondered where the birds had gone. Before drifting back to sleep my ears focused.  I heard them. The birds had not gone away. I had just stopped hearing them.  A touch of sadness crept in. I missed being awoken by the birds! They were a reminder to me that the good days of summer were beginning and filled me with anticipation of the activities that lay ahead, the hikes I would make, the boats I would row, the tomatoes I would grow.  The birds reminded me that one day soon I would don my bathing suit and sandals again, take my lunch break outside and absorb the warmth of the sun.

That I am no longer awoken by the birds is a sign that the end of summer is approaching. Though it has been fully satisfying, I feel a wave of nostalgia for summer's past. My children are no longer little and the time is past when I could take them to the pool daily. I have come to a period of my life in which I am truly happy but as the summer begins to fade, I feel the loss of all those years while my children were little during which I was incapable of happiness. I wasn't able to experience the joy that I now can at watching them grow. I am sad both for what I could not experience and also for I could not provide.  It is then that I take comfort in knowing that if it weren't for the loss,  I would never have experienced the gratitude for the joy I have found.