Seasonal Dissonance

loss in the middle of summer

Tomorrow is July and my body knows it.

My hips and neck ache. My head feels heavy. My sore throat leads me to believe that I do have some semblance of a cold, but the tears and familiar whole-body tingles let me know there’s another player involved.

July is full of grief. It feels so misplaced among the smell of my neighbor’s barbecues, fireworks, and gorgeous hydrangea blooms. It creates dissonance in my system. My dad died during the month of November. November feels right for death. My mom died in July—the audacity. Though, my heart understands why she did.

By July of 2022, my dad had been gone for eight months, and ALS had left her unable to speak, swallow, walk, or clear mucus from her airway without my help. Long beach days where she basked in the sun sharing elaborate imaginary stories about her time in the Olympics performing synchronized swimming were over. Summer was her season but the thick humid air and increasing heat made it too difficult for her to even sit outside on the deck. She was left lying in the air-conditioned bedroom, waiting for the next round of medication or meal to be administered through her feeding tube, and watching me, the only beach lover of her three children and her full-time caretaker, having to move heaven and earth to get an hour to myself with my feet in the sand. I’m not sure I would’ve been long for July either.

On July 1st, I took my mom for her last beach ride in her Jeep, and we sat at the beach for the last time together, her feet in a bucket of sand and saltwater.

On July 3rd, my brother, best friend, mom, and I spent the last Third of July (our favorite family holiday) together. It was complete with a hot dog toast to my dad alongside his stereotypical dad shoes, and it ended with my mom falling asleep with a hamburger she was incapable of swallowing but wanted to taste in her mouth. It was glorious.

On July 6th, my mom died.

On July 9th, we buried her.

The rest of the month and that summer I spent packing up my apartment and cleaning out my childhood home so I could move in.

My body remembers the summer of 2022 in great detail, and truthfully, because of these events, July and August have lost their position as my favorite months of the year. They are heavy and dense, literally and metaphorically. But I won’t permanently slam the door shut on my love for this season, because if loss has taught me anything, it’s just how impermanent everything truly is.

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