The Signs That Find Us

On grief, becoming, and the signs that keep us going.

Everywhere I look, people are talking about fall — pumpkin spice everything, cozy sweaters, the romance of changing leaves.

But I’ve always dreaded this time of year.

The air turns heavy, damp, and gray — the kind that seeps into my bones before the real cold even arrives. My joints ache, my body protests, and everything in me starts to pull inward.

People romanticize this season — the candles, the cinnamon, the cozy everything.

But for me, it’s more survival than comfort.

Fall has never been kind to me. My mother passed in the fall. My grandmother too. My grandfather. Even my father’s stroke happened during these same months.

Year after year, this time of change has carried loss in its wake. Maybe that’s why my body braces when the air shifts — why my heart grows heavier.

Fall has always been a reckoning.

Grief, I’ve learned, doesn’t just live in the mind — it lives in the body. When my mother died, it felt less like loss and more like withdrawal.

My whole system went into shock, searching for the voice, the presence, the energy that had kept me alive for so long. It was as if every cell in me had been wired to her, and suddenly, the current disappeared.

For months, my body searched for her like it was missing oxygen. I lit candles. I wore her pearls. I spritzed her perfume into the hallway, hoping to inhale her back molecule by molecule.

I thought I was soothing grief, but I see now it was something deeper — an addiction to connection, to care, to the woman who was both my anchor and my mirror.

That’s the thing about healing — just when you think you’ve moved past the old fears, they find new ways to return.

So today, I asked my grandparents for a sign.

I asked them to show me that I’m on the right path, that the decisions I’m making — the ones that stretch me, that scare me are all part of something bigger.

And this afternoon, the mail arrived. Inside was a photo my cousin had sent me: my grandparents on their wedding day.

My grandparents on their wedding day — the beginning of everything that would one day lead to me.

The black-and-white edges worn, their faces young and serious. My grandmother in her long white gown, my grandfather in a suit that probably wasn’t quite his size.

I just stared at it.

There they were — together, beginning a life that would eventually lead to mine. A moment frozen in time, arriving on my doorstep exactly when I needed it most.

Maybe you’d call that coincidence. I call it connection.

A reminder that they’re still here somehow — watching, guiding, reminding me to keep going.

Still, this photo arrived today.

A small sign.

A whisper from somewhere beyond the veil: Keep going. You’re not lost. You’re becoming.

And so I write. Because writing heals me.

It brings me closer to them, to myself, to whatever this new chapter is becoming.

Maybe, through sharing my story, someone else will feel a little less alone in theirs. We’re all just figuring it out — one step, one word, one sign at a time.

The three of us, summers by the water — before I knew how much they’d shape who I’d become.

If you’ve ever asked for a sign and received one — subtle or small — I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Sometimes, sharing them keeps the warmth alive a little longer.