A New Season

A new season is about to begin. As I sit here tonight the Dallas Cowboy’s second preseason game is flashing across the television screen, sound muted, after all it is just a preseason game. In a few weeks another NFL season will begin and like so many of the past I will hope for victory but prepare for disappointment.

This is not the new season I am thinking about tonight.

 I have entered into a new season in my life, an often lonely season. It is hard to describe to you all the elements of this new season because I have yet to understand them fully. However there are some that are as obvious as the leaves changing colors when autumn pushes summer out of the way. My advent into this new season began almost three years ago. In fact, September 2^nd will mark the three year anniversary of the beginning of this new season. It was on that date three years ago that she drove away one night and has never returned. There were opportunities to do so but they passed quietly in the night. Now as this new season has added 1000 days to the first  I believe I have finally accepted the reality that she is not coming back. 1000 days is a long time to think of as an eve to this new season, but I must; I have run out of waiting.

With new seasons come changes, so many changes. My youngest daughter became a mother just three weeks ago. He is a beautiful baby boy. I am blessed that he lives in my home, blessed when I hear his cries in the middle of the night, blessed when I inhale the aroma of a new baby bathed by the gentle hands of a new mother. But I am reminded that I am his grandfather. His mother and father will all too soon have a home of their own where they will begin their own new season, their own new life. I hope that I will see him often, but life is not about what I hope, I seldom see my other grandson.

With new seasons come changes, so many changes. My oldest son and his wife will soon give life to another child, a baby girl. She will be their third daughter, another granddaughter for me. I have been blessed for some time now that they too have shared my home. But their lives are changing, a new season will soon begin for them and they will start in a new home, with a new hope. I think I will see them often, but life is busy. I’ll understand.

With new seasons come changes, so many changes. My youngest son has reached a height that will soon tower over me. He still comes to me to share his excitements, his triumphs and even his failures. A new school year, school season, begins in just a few weeks. He will enter the halls as an eighth grader, a season that changes everyone who enters it. New experiences, new friends, new girls will enter this season with him. And then I will blink and he will be a man. Five years seems like plenty of time left, until I look back five years and see how fast they went by.

This new season is lonely. I remind myself each morning that God has provided all the past seasons and He will provide all the future ones. And I remember that a season will come unlike any other when He calls me home. To remember these things helps with the loneliness, squelches it down to bearable levels. If I could ask God for anything I would ask Him to slow down this season (and maybe He could help the Cowboys just a little).

With new seasons come changes, too many changes.