I woke up slowly this morning. Lying in the dark quiet that is my room at 4am, my brain crawling out of what felt like a thick, hazy dream, a sudden bright thought came to mind: November is finally over. A deep breath escaped from my gut through my lips. Relief— and—sadness washed over me.

You see, November used to be my favorite month.

It has pieces of so many of my favorite things: clear, crisp mornings; warm drinks and cozy introverting opportunities; the excitement of nearing holidays; and of course, those magnificent autumn leaves. November is gentle and delicious, intriguing yet subtle, leaving us wanting more while overwhelming with too much. so much to explore, riding on the coattails of its magic. If there were such a thing as a spirit month, November was mine. It‘s the month I‘d come alive.

I can’t pinpoint when its sparkle began to fade. All these things that make November magical to me are all still there—that hasn’t changed—but the lens through which I experience its magic has become scratched and soiled beyond repair, the clock I use to measure its days is stuck in time.

A week or so ago, I had this strange yet incredibly realistic dream. In my dream. Husbandman and I planned a trip out to California to visit a man my dad’s age, because he was grieving the loss of his daughter, Zoe. He was so thankful that we thought of him and anxiously waited for us to arrive. I woke up just after we got to California and saw his face.

The strange thing about this dream is that Zoe and her dad are real. I only of know them from a distance that‘s made possible through social media. Zoe, who was 5 years younger than me, was suffering through stage 4 breast cancer when the lines of our digital lives crossed years ago. It was through these same crossed lines that I came to learn two years ago that she’d passed away.

It was a hard week, the week that Zoe passed away. I was going through chemo then and it was hard to keep hope alive.

But getting back to my dream: what’s stranger about this dream is that I hadn’t thought about Zoe in at least a year, if not more. My brain had erased my memory of her during this pandemic year. The dream felt so random and meaningful in equal measure that I couldn’t shake it; I went on social media for the first time in months to check her account.

My jaw literally dropped. My dream was almost exactly on the anniversary of her passing.

It blows my mind how we carry these heavy, invisible things with us through life; how our minds keep track of pain and grief deep within our subconscious, then causing us to forget just enough to enable us to continue moving through life on this earth.

A few weeks ago, I lost another dear friend to cancer. My sweet friend Ashley passed away. She fought cancer with such an honest strength and smile. I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t hug her or hear her soothing voice ever again.

To top it all off – November is my birthday month. The month celebrating my life is marred with the harsh stains of death.

Come, Lord Jesus – come.