There are certain days on the calendar that carry a weight no matter how many years pass.
For me, September 25th is one of them. I got married on this day in 2004. What should have been a yearly celebration became, after 14 years, a reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed. The phrase on today’s board, “Pride goeth before the fall,” fits too well. I didn’t walk into marriage thinking it would unravel. Nobody does, but it did, and the fall was hard.
Co-parenting has been the toughest lesson of all. Divorce doesn’t end the story, it rewrites it. Instead of walking side by side, you split the road and try to raise kids from different lanes. Sometimes different highways all together. It is messy and frustrating and some days it feels impossible.
Yet out of the hatred and destruction came the greatest gift: the Shepkids. George, Fritz, and Hazel are the bright proof that even broken glass can scatter light.
I moved on to a different chapter in Riverside. Life has steadied and joy has returned, and my home has its own rhythm now.
But this date still lingers. It teaches me humility, reminds me of mistakes, and forces me to swallow the taste of loss. Oddly enough, the farther I get from that marriage, the more the good memories surface. The laughter, the Sunday dinners at PopPop's, the small family victories, the endless hours of kid movies... they have climbed out of the wreckage and survived.
Today I sit with the bitterness and the sweetness, both belong. Failure doesn’t erase the good, just as pride doesn’t cancel out love. The Shepkids are the legacy and I still have a mother-in-law that needs my help every once and awhile.
The rest is part of the story, part of the lesson. If I can carry both the fall and the rise, maybe that’s the real definition of moving on.
The first week of autumn and I gave you an idea of holiday timing in the Grabber section this morning. I put a smile on the sun and a pleasant temperature in the corner. Sunrise and sunset mark the last twelve hours of daylight until next spring. Soak it up with astonishment.
