Spring comes early in Texas. On days heavy with moist, low-lying clouds the scent of new life bursts from every flower and bush. As winter surrenders to spring and the first paperwhites appear almost overnight, my head begins to rattle with the drumbeat of grief.

   Love blossomed when Leighton called on a balmy spring evening one year to arrange a first date. We were married the next April. Seventeen years later, a few days after Easter, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Ninety days later he died. My beloved father died in April the next year.

   Spring evokes memories of the best and worst in life. At this time of year, my heart is powerless to resist the emotions that wash through my spirit, the full range of feelings from sorrow to joy. The challenge of grief is learning to experience seasons of the heart in new ways, whatever the time of year. Life, Love, Death, Grief—the seasons of our soul.

   The seasons of nature are an integral part of God’s order in the world, “You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting” (Psalm 104:19). Though we grumble when winter is too long, when spring is too rainy, when summer is too hot, when autumn is too cold, there is comfort in the predictability and reliability of the cycle of nature that God created to be the seasons, “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:11-12).

   In December one year the husband of a dear friend died after a traumatic accident and month-long stay in the hospital. Despite her willing spirit and determination to participate in the joy of Christmas, the holiday season is always a time of recalled sadness and grief for her. Winter will always be the season laden with powerful memories of her beloved husband. Winter will always be for her a reminder of the suddenness with which death can change our life. Winter will always recall the heartbreak of slow leave-taking and death. For her it could not be otherwise. This is the love that transcends every season.

   The emotional muscle memory of grief often takes us by surprise. A time, a place, a smell, or an event can trigger our emotions and quickly transport us back to our experience of grief. Whatever the season, the heart remembers—always.

   When we grieve we experience seasons that parallel those of nature, though not necessarily in the same order.

• When one we love dies, we live for a while in the bleak midwinter of grief. Our sorrow and pain feel bitterly cold. The winter landscape of our life reflects our desolation. There is little comfort in the winter of our grief.
• As we struggle, grow, and adjust to life without our loved one, we endure the oppressive, challenging heat of summer At the end of our long hot summer of grief, we accept at last the reality and finality of death.
• In the springtime of grief, we reawaken to life. We open ourself to new possibilities with hope for the future.
• In the autumn of our grief, we enjoy the burnished glow of a deeper, richer faith. The rough edges of grief are worn smooth, our spirit transformed by God’s grace. 

   We learn from the seasons that there is symmetry and order to our experience of grief. We thank God for the seasons of nature that modulate the rhythms of our life, “You have fixed all the bounds of the earth; you made summer and winter” (Psalm 74:17). We thank God for the seasons of nature that instruct the seasons of our grief.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;…a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…
Ecclesiastes 3:1-4