Winter Melts to Summer - A Death Doula's Joyful Dance Through Life's Seasons

Winters are long, gray, quiet, lonely. Thankfully, we can count on winter melting into spring, most often in the tiniest ways that cause us to miss its subtle — even elusive — arrival.

We curse the cold, the ice, the dirt on our cars, our ill-tempered neighbors whom we catch in a glimpse racing like a flash into the warmth of their homes without even a sideways glance, missing the wave of our mittened hands — one clutching the ice scraper. Our winter coats are bulky and make driving feel like we've been stuffed into our cars like marshmallows between two graham crackers. It feels endless, because the darkness can swallow hope if we let it.

But as the perennial season of expectation begins to pop into view — tiny growth struggling up from the dormant ground — I begin to reawaken with excited anticipation of warmer months ahead. The smell of the air changes, as does the color of the sky; birdsong returns in different tones, and the brown earth stirs with life and movement.

I've noticed that aging seems to have happened in much the same way, sneaking around our skin, our hair, our joints, our perspective, making subtle changes to our very selves. The mirror reflects a person we may not recognize. Halos of gray hair frame our faces, our skin feels like crepe paper, and new lines have been drawn across our faces with such delicacy and precision that we wonder how they snuck in, unnoticed.

As a planner, I begin to create lists — what I will plant in the garden, bike rides I want to take, weekend excursions to visit old and new friends — even meal planning takes a different approach with new crops of seasonal fruits and vegetables. As we dare to throw up the shades and open the windows in the longer hours of daylight, we catch ourselves pausing to take in the familiar view of our surroundings, perhaps acknowledging the miracle of circadian rhythms as reliable as any phenomenon we know.

Spring and summer are among my favorite companions. I swear I can breathe more easily and experience life more lightly when accompanied by sunshine and warm weather. I seek out the water for its constant motion, intoxicating smell, and brilliant colors, and I resist walls and air-conditioning like a child resists a plate of spinach — heels dug in with cheerful defiance.

As a young girl, I was privileged to spend summer vacations in Camden, Maine. Packing up the car never felt like a chore when Maine was the destination. The long drive up the East Coast was welcome, and when I learned to drive, I couldn't wait to get behind the wheel — both because I love to drive, and because the music on the radio was the driver's choice. Many of the songs from that era remain among my favorites, for their uncanny ability to conjure only the happiest of memories.

Crossing the state line into Maine brought me more excitement than Christmas. Time off from chores, school, routine. While I am — and always will be — an early riser, there is liberation in knowing that if I wanted to sleep in, no one would chastise me for that guilty pleasure. Of course, I never did sleep in. There was a lake, a boat, fishing rods, dirt roads, hikes, rocky shores, and evergreen forests to explore. The softness of pine needles underfoot made it impossible not to remove my shoes.

With cerulean skies above and a gentle onshore breeze, I would spend hours breathing in the intoxicating scent of pine, listening to the halyard clank softly against the mast of the Sunfish while the water lapped mesmerizingly against the lake's rocky shore. And to my ongoing amazement — the Loons would come, with all their haunting mystery, raising goosebumps on my skin that signaled both wonder and gratitude.

Memories are deeply personal. And if we ask what makes certain ones become so beautifully etched into our very being, I believe the answer is love. Love of a place, a person, an experience. Love of a time that was but never will be again. How fortunate we are to possess the capacity to capture moments that, even fifty years later, can conjure both joy and heartache in equal measure.

My childhood memories of Maine include my father as co-protagonist alongside my mother. Dedicated to his work and to providing for his family, my father was at his best in Maine — sitting on the porch with a cigarette in one hand and a vodka tonic in the other, a book open in his lap. He was vigilant about our safety, but the strictness and structure of home life in Pennsylvania softened considerably up there. Sometimes I would wade out into the lake and climb up onto a great gray boulder, warmed by the afternoon sun. I would stretch out on that rock like a seal and soak in the pure joy of the moment — watching my father's book slip gently into his lap as he dozed off in the golden light.

I'm not at all sure where time goes. Its pace frightens me sometimes — the way we tumble through this life, breathless and blinking. But it is the opportunities seized, the memories made, and the people loved that make my life so rich with happiness. So, while I may complain about winter and its dubious volatility, I can count on spring — her glorious neighbor — to settle me back into what grounds me.

And as I grow older, I find myself believing increasingly that our fleeting presence in this life is not so different from the seasons themselves — each one passing, each one returning, each one a kind of home. Summer, warm and luminous and full, has always felt like mine. It always will.

~Camden, Maine - Circa 1980~