No matter what the calendar might indicate, summer is here. School is out, the pools are open, Memorial Day is over, and the sugar snaps have succumbed to the heat. It’s summer.

I had a good sugar snap harvest this year. Not my best but far from my worst. It was a little warm and dry for these plants, but the peas were sweet and crunchy and enough to share.

I could be sad about my brown and brittle plants. It would be wonderful if they could grow and produce all summer, but that is not what sugar snaps do in Tennessee. They grow in the Spring, they produce in May, and they die when the temperatures get into the eighties. Instead of being saddened by their relatively short lives, I am grateful for their delicious fruit and the joy of the harvest that they brought me.

Already the rest of my garden is calling for my attention. Leaves cover the fig and the raspberry. The tomato plants grow taller by the day. I have already picked basil leaves, and the garlic is beginning to mature. The garden continues to grow and produce.

After my husband died, I found it disturbing that the world continued. I suddenly understood the old practice of stopping the clocks, covering them even. If you can’t turn back time and bring your loved one back, at least you can try to stop it from moving on. Because you don’t want to get over their death. You don’t want it to be true, and the longer you live with the reality of their passing, the truer it becomes.

But while the sugar snaps are dead, the garden is not. I am coming up on the seven-year anniversary of Nick’s death. Time has continued. New plants have grown in my garden; new interests, new friends, and new hobbies have arisen to fill my days. Maybe even one day, romance may resurface, although I am not planting those seeds and am not ready for it to appear.

I sense the shift, though. Ever so slowly, I am turning my attention from the brown and brittle hurt of loss to the green and growing life around me. The lake beckons. My children and grandchildren thrive. My friend group expands. I find myself going to new venues to hear live music. I am learning to blend the old things and the new things.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1.

I still twinge at the thought of moving on though. I still love my husband. I still miss him. But the hot weather that kills the sugar snaps makes the tomatoes and cucumbers grow. And their fruit is delicious as well. The garden has taught me that different fruits require different environments, that not all fruit appears at the same time, and that good things can grow under any circumstance. This is true in the garden; this is true in life.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28.

And summer can be a glorious time, full of play and water sports, and vacations, and a break from routines. Summer is a time for beach reads and family reunions, travel and sitting by the water. Summer is a time for red tomatoes and purple figs, cucumber sandwiches and fresh raspberries.

Join me in the shift. Let’s turn our attention from grieving the loss of what was to celebrating what is and what will be.

Love in Christ, Betsy