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Seeing September

Seeing September

For months I knew it would arrive, and now it has. It would be special, sad, and I wasn’t sure what else. Now that September’s here, I escape my procrastination at looking. 

It’s my month of many anniversaries. The major milestones and markers of my life’s journey make a list that includes: 

Became a lawyer  

Became a mother 

Became a widow 

The universe seems to know that the impending arrival of autumn is my special time for a change of seasons. 

In falls past I could see neither their full meaning nor their foretelling of my future. How being admitted to the bar would lead to founding a wholehearted law firm. How birthing my firstborn in a hospital room would one day mean he’d be life flighted to the same hospital with crushed limbs. That sitting on the bed beside my husband in his final days would lead me to a longing to serve the dying. 

In school I ignored opportunities to study history beyond reading books about heroines I admired. Now that I’ve accumulated a bit of my own, I’m a staunch believer in honoring the past. After all, it’s been good to me. It’s been generous with gifts of seeing the impermanence of our days, the preciousness of people, and that the present matters most of all. 

Tomorrow I will add another celebration to my September remembrances. My nephew Kevin and his bride Lori are to be married. He is a gregarious Midwesterner and she a New Jersey woman who matches his love of family and joyful spirit. 

The walk to their wedding day was long. Jobs and homes and children all in different cities. A pandemic postponing the party to its third date. When their vows are exchanged, I will be the officiant declaring them husband and wife. Their pasts will be with them, but they will be wholly and completely present, as will I. 

This month I intend to take time to take it all in—-each day on the calendar along with the big milestones of 40 years since I entered the legal profession and 10 years since John left this earth he loved.  As I do, I pray to be fully present to the wonder of the present, knowing it will one day be my past I honor. 

Coach Koenig 

This month Susan will share further reflections on the gifts of her Septembers past. 

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