August 5, 2026
Over the last few years, I’m
very grateful to say goodbye to the month of July. That wasn’t always the case.
When I was a child, and even
into the beginning of my married years, I looked forward to the seventh month
every year. We used to call it Christmas in July—both before and post marriage.
My brother’s birthday was on the first, and my mother’s was on the fifth. My
own birthday was on the twenty-first.
David and I married on the
fourteenth of July. Our first son was
born at the end of that year (in December), and all was well until he was three
and a half years old. That year, my mother died in April, and I became an
orphan at the age of twenty-one.
The next year, our second
child, our son Anthony, was born on my mother’s birthday! It felt at the time
as if God had planned it that way. The following year, I gave birth to our
daughter on the thirteenth of July. This was also the birthday of a dear friend
as well as two of her own siblings, and she had begged me not to do it…but
really, Diana, I had no choice!
Then, after almost three
decades of Christmases in July, of a birthday a week for three weeks straight
(5th, 13th, and 21st), we lost our Anthony on the thirtieth
of July—twenty years ago this year. And my brother left us on the 29th
of February, 2020.
It is natural in life that the
older you get, the fewer people there are within your circle. It’s natural but
not easy. What isn’t natural of course is having to bury one’s child. All
losses forever possess the ability to render us to tears, occasionally. But the
loss of a child is a wound that never heals sufficiently to allow one to move
on seamlessly.
That’s not to say that I
regret being given the opportunity to be the mother of the one I lost. He was a
challenge, and the path was twisted, but I did, and I do, celebrate his
existence in our lives and in my heart. I loved him beyond words and I still
do. He brought our second daughter into
our lives, and together they gave us three beautiful grandchildren…including
the first one who was with us for only a few days. I find comfort knowing that
the two of them are together.
Love, the kind that sinks deep
into your soul and wraps around your heart, is always worth the pain of loss. Always.
I’ve often written in my
essays, in one way or another, that the purpose of life is to help us become
the best version of ourselves possible. It’s a journey of growth, of
disappointment and triumph and yes, tragedy, and those are the refining tools
used to shape us.
Oh, one can certainly decide,
freely, that they’ve had enough of that pain of loss, and close themselves off
to the possibility of more. They refuse to make new friends or adopt new pets
and to just stay to themselves.
But then you stop growing. You
stop being, in a way. You stop…serving your purpose. You’re no longer living,
you’re just …breathing.
There are good memories. There
are smiles from looking back and there are even moments of laughter there.
Perhaps the tears are always just waiting in the background, but that is only
natural, too.
Even the most beautiful of
gardens welcome the rain.
Today is the fifth August and
July 2026 is receding in the rearview mirror. It’s time to look forward again. To
think and to plan and to hope and to dream again. Until the next July.
As I contort my body to look
beyond my computer monitor at the sunshine and blue skies waiting there on the
other side of my office window, I feel contentment. That’s the thing about
being shaped and molded by the tools in the Creator’s hands.
There are always a few quiet
moments of joy and thanksgiving in between the sessions. Moments of peace and
quietly building strength.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
