I love November for two things. Number one, the Jacaranda trees blossom and it's my fav of all the trees. Number two, it's my birthday month, and whilst I've kind of stopped doing big celebrations around that milestone, I am happy to have spent another full year alive and well. I'm now into the second half of my life and I'm starting to notice changes, changes in my body, my energy, my general demeanour and most of all the changes in how I view my time on this planet (but that's a huge "other" post that I may never write). All of that adds to my gratefulness of having made it around the sun one more time.
But there's another side to November, one that I truly don't like, one that I try not to acknowledge every year but she's a bit of a cow is old November and she wont let me forget. November is the month that anyone who was ever very dear to me dies. It's not a big list but it sure is a powerful one. It goes a bit like this...
26th of November, my mother, 13 days after she gave birth to me she died, she never left the hospital, she was 25. That single event has shaped my life in a massive way.
11th November, my father died, two nights before my 12th birthday, he was 37. If I thought losing my mother affected my life, I wasn't ready for what this double whammy was going to bring.
26th November, (again) my fathers mother, my grandmother, the person who cared for me for the first few years of my life after the loss of my mother died. She at least made it to the age of 83.
13th November, Jac, my first love, died on my birthday two years ago. There is barely a week that goes by that I don't think about this and pretty much daily this month (thanks November) she's in my thoughts.
Other people I have known have died in other months but none of them were close enough to me that they sit in my heart, god that sounds soppy, but I don't know how else to say it.
The good news is that it's not every November, it's just always in November. So what I'm trying to say is take care of yourselves, it's all of you that have to survive the month, not me, please don't become the fifth on my list.
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