Life is About Seasons.

“Life is about seasons,” she said.

We were talking about pain, and fear. Her husband had a very traumatic brain injury a few years ago and almost died. And it still haunts her.

“I just never want to lose him. And no one can fucking promise me I won’t.”

We’re never told life is fair. In fact, we’re told so frequently that it isn’t that it should be burnt into our psyche. But we don’t work like that. We have good lives. If you’re reading this, you have an internet connection, which suggests a roof over your head and food in your stomach. This softens us, and feeds our naturally optimistic souls. But life isn’t fair. Nor is it unfair. It just is.

Some people seem to spend life in the summer. Sure there are storms, but generally they live in the sun of good fortune. Some people spend life in the winter, an existence of darkness, hunger, violence, and strife. Most of us spend it drifting through a mix. We have summers, winters, springs. But what is hardest is that we rarely get fall. We aren’t characters in the Game of Thrones, with warnings of “Winter is coming.” It just happens.

Her husband was out for a bike ride with his team. As he had done literally thousands of times before. And then he was in a hospital fighting to keep his life and personality.

He survived. And is kicking ass today. But the impending nature of our winters leaves her scarred and scared.

It’s easy to look at her, as I did during that conversation and say: “But he didn’t die. You have a normal life, he’s fine!” But now she knows. She knows better than any of us can, how quickly the seasons change.