Fall is my favorite season.
I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves, the pumpkins, the decorations, and all the little rituals that seem to begin as soon as September turns toward October.
But fall is also the season when I feel loss most sharply.
My birthday is October 10.
My mom’s was October 11.
For my entire life, they were never really two separate birthdays. They were simply the October birthdays.
We celebrated together.
The whole month felt like ours.
Halloween decorations appeared. Pumpkin spice showed up everywhere. The weather shifted. October had a rhythm and an identity that belonged to both of us.
Then my mom died.
And suddenly, October changed.
When a Shared Tradition Becomes a Solo One
The first year after she was gone, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to celebrate my birthday.
It felt strange.
For decades, my birthday had always been connected to hers. There had never really been a “my birthday” followed by “Mom’s birthday.”
It was ours.
Even now, three years later, my birthday still feels different.
Last year, I chaired the Gilda’s Club auction committee, and the event happened to fall on my birthday.
In some ways, it was a relief.
I didn’t have to think too much about how to celebrate.
I had somewhere to be. I had something meaningful to focus on. I had a job to do.
And I suspect that says something about grief, too.
Sometimes we create plans because they help us move through a day we aren’t quite sure how to inhabit.
The Loss Is Bigger Than the Person
We often talk about grief as missing someone.
And of course, that is part of it.
But grief is rarely only about the person.
It is also about all the roles that person played in our life.
It is about the traditions they shaped.
The routines they were part of.
The jokes only they understood.
The calls we made without thinking.
The way certain holidays felt when they were present.
The way a birthday belonged to two people instead of one.
Sometimes we don’t even recognize those losses until something changes.
A season arrives.
The kids go back to school.
A job ends.
A move happens.
A birthday comes around again.
And suddenly, a part of the relationship we hadn’t consciously thought about becomes visible.
That is one reason transitions can stir grief so unexpectedly.
Healing Is Not a Straight Line
I see this often with clients and in support groups.
Someone may feel as though they are doing well, and then a seemingly ordinary life transition brings grief rushing back.
A child starts school.
Someone retires.
A familiar routine changes.
A new job begins.
A house is sold.
A holiday approaches.
It can feel discouraging.
People sometimes assume that if grief feels intense again, they must somehow be going backward.
But healing doesn’t work that way.
It is not a perfectly sloped line moving steadily upward.
It has peaks.
Valleys.
Plateaus.
Sometimes we move forward.
Sometimes we circle back.
Sometimes we discover a new layer of loss we had not fully understood before.
That does not mean healing has stopped.
It means we are human.
Notice What the Transition Is Stirring Up
When grief appears unexpectedly, I don’t think we always need to fix it.
Sometimes it helps simply to ask:
What is this moment reminding me of?
Maybe you don’t just miss the person.
Maybe you miss who you were when they were here.
Maybe you miss the role they played.
Maybe you miss a tradition that no longer exists in quite the same way.
For me, October is not only about missing my mom.
It is about missing the October birthdays.
It is about missing the fact that the month used to belong to both of us.
Naming that specific loss does not make it disappear.
But sometimes it makes the feeling easier to understand.
Traditions Are Allowed to Change
One of the hardest things about grief is deciding what to do with traditions.
Do we keep them exactly the same?
Do we abandon them?
Do we create something new?
There is no single right answer.
And the answer may change from one year to the next.
Last year, spending my birthday at the Gilda’s Club auction worked for me.
Another year, travel may feel better.
Travel has always been a healing outlet for me, so I often find myself looking at places to go in October.
I am sure part of that is because I genuinely love to travel.
And I am equally sure part of it is because being somewhere else makes it easier not to focus on the fact that it is just my birthday now.
Both things can be true.
We do not have to judge the ways we get ourselves through difficult days.
Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is give ourselves permission to change the tradition.
Make a Plan, but Leave Room to Change It
Emotionally loaded dates can be easier when we think about them ahead of time.
Do I want company?
Do I want to be alone?
Do I want to travel?
Do I want to do something in my person’s memory?
Do I want the day to feel special, or would I rather let it pass quietly?
It can help to make a plan.
But it can also help to give ourselves permission to abandon that plan.
Grief does not always cooperate with calendars.
What sounds comforting a week ahead may feel exhausting when the day arrives.
Flexibility matters.
Carrying Something Forward
I don’t think healing always means letting go.
Sometimes it means deciding what we want to carry forward.
A tradition.
A recipe.
A place.
A story.
A phrase.
A way someone made us feel.
A shared month.
October may never feel like it did when my mom was here.
But all those years of the October birthdays still happened.
They are still part of me.
The fact that I am now the only one here to celebrate does not erase the fact that, for most of my life, October belonged to both of us.
So maybe the goal is not to make the month stop feeling different.
Maybe it is to allow it to hold both things.
The sadness that she is gone.
And the gratitude that, for so many years, we had something that was ours.
That is the complicated truth of grief.
The seasons change.
Life changes.
We change.
And sometimes healing means learning how to carry what mattered from one season into the next.
