My new day planner arrived by Amazon and the pages are like a blank canvas of what the upcoming new year may be like. I think about all the changes this year brought, the possible changes I wish for, and what I might be able to control. There is a tiny excitement that builds from the hope that it will be different, it will be softer, it will be full of the things I desire for my family, my friends and myself.

The truth is I hate change. I know it will come.  It could be good, bad, big, or small. But it will come. I find that any kind of change takes an energy that I don’t usually have to face it.  During a walk in the park to clear my head, I thought of the poets who write of how Autumn encourages nature to change to ready itself for the future.

We see the leaves have turned color and fallen; the air is now crisp in the early morning hours. Most of us appreciate the beauty of nature and how she bends to the ebbs and flows of life. We don’t accept changes in our own life as easily; we tend to shy away from it, especially when change has brought a living nightmare to our lives. Change becomes scary when we are grieving.

Change confirms that time is moving on. And it comes with an expectation that we are to move on. That is what I don’t like about it. It comes whether I like it or not (and often I don’t). In my opinion, change can go to hell.

I have had many people share with me the struggles they are having about where they are right now. Some of the challenges are health, others are financial, others are physical location. The common theme with these conversations is that change is needed. Needed, being the key word. So, maybe it is the fear of what change might bring, that keeps us from exploring possibilities.

Loss has brought us the definitive change.  Nothing will ever be the same.  And because we are mourning, because we want things to go back as they were, because we hurt to move forward without our loved ones, we resist change. To consider accepting change is a challenge, surely, we wouldn’t invite it into our lives. But what if we did? What if we looked at what changes we could bring in to help comfort us in our daily healing? What might be needed to bring this idea to fruition, to better our today and help bring a more peaceful tomorrow.

I came across a letter I wrote to Zane in March. I was telling him that I was cancelling his cell phone. I have been paying for it for 4+ years and it was time to change this. I was distraught with the idea that I would no longer have a ‘land line’ to my son. Silly, but to cancel his number was too much of a change to consider doing.  Until this time. So, what would this change look like?  What control did I have to make this change less painful. I decided to record his voice mail message, cancel the number, and take the monthly cost of keeping it, putting that amount into a savings account in his honor. A change of use for this expense. The phone is not needed, but a savings would be something he would have enjoyed. That simple combination of replacing one thing with a new more suited thing made the change easier. 

I wrote, “I can pretend that you just changed your number. In essence it has.  To some sort of heavenly number now. I should be ok with this, but I’m not. Your number was my earthly connection to you, my sweet boy.  And you always picked up.”

When we can’t control how change comes, or how big it comes, we can explore what can be done to ease the sting of such change. We can accept change or make modifications to it. And sometimes we can choose to ignore it, until time helps give us the strength it takes to face it.