Growth (written in August 2021)

Growth (written in August 2021)

Jennifer Koos
So much growth during this season of life. Firstly, Logan is somehow almost one year old. He came early, fast, in the middle of the night, and has kept us on our toes ever since. He has grown into a sweet, ornery, wild, adorable little boy. He has brought so much healing in different ways. He keeps me so busy and sometimes just worn out šŸ˜‚ but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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There has been growth for me as well. I came across this graphic a while ago and recently just really felt how accurate it was.
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As far as my grieving process, I’m not ā€œover itā€ or ā€œpast itā€. I still have really hard days and expect to for a long time. The hurt and sadness hasn’t gotten smaller; I’ve grown around it. I’ve learned how to cope. I’ve found things that have comforted me. I’ve adjusted to a new ā€œnormalā€. As much as I hate that it is a permanent new ā€œnormalā€, I am proud of how far I have come and how much I have grown around that grief. It is still there, it is still heavy; but it’s not as consuming as it once was. I really love this illustration of it, and I hope maybe it will help some else in earlier stages of grief.
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Lastly, there is a lot of growth in my garden! Gardening was something my dad liked to do. We talked about him helping me start one and I regret not ever getting around to that. So this spring I decided I was going to plant a few veggies as well as redo my flowerbed. A little backstory, last fall my parents put pumpkins in our flower bed for Luke (but really it was me who was so excited šŸ˜‚). With everything that happened I let those pumpkins sit there all winter and into spring. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. I decided to gather the seeds and plant them in another area to see if pumpkins would grow. Well, after several angry attempts and a broken shovel I decided it wasn’t in the cards this year and that area wasn’t going to be cleared out. I hoped the seeds would last. About a month or two ago I noticed what I thought was a weed in my front flowerbed. It looked similar to my squash plants though so I decided to leave it just to see. Sure enough, I didn’t get all of the pumpkin seeds out and now my flower bed is taken over by a pumpkin vine! I love this so much that something my parents did for me came back this year. I hope to replant the seeds each year and tell
my boys how much their grandpa loved working in the yard and how the future pumpkins and seeds are from pumpkins that grandpa and Nana put out for them. I also have a few tomatoes and squash growing that I was so excited about. I wish so much I could show my dad everything growing. I know he would be so excited. I don’t get to share any of it with my dad like I so much wish I could. He won’t be at Logan’s first birthday. I won’t ever get to see his excitement about my garden and plants. But I do believe he is watching me and is proud and excited about all of the growth around me ā¤ļø

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