Life Brings Changes

This summer, I’ve stood with couples on their wedding day, and with families saying goodbye to loved ones at funerals. The kids around us have broken up for the holidays — though soon enough they’ll be back, in new classrooms.

Life just doesn’t sit still. In my last letter, I talked about the growing season, and about being patient — with yourself, and with everyone around you. Trusting that good things are growing, even when you can’t see them yet. That feels even truer now, as August rolls on.

The Growth You Can See

If you’re already buying new school uniforms this year, you don’t need me to tell you kids grow fast — the trousers that fit fine at Easter are somehow too short by now. Weddings and funerals mark change too. A wedding is two lives becoming one. A funeral is when we finally notice everything a life quietly became.

The Growth You Can’t See

Here’s what I keep coming back to, though: have we grown as people? Not taller — the stuff that doesn’t show up against a doorframe. Are we more patient with the people who wind us up? Braver about that conversation we’ve been putting off, or kinder to ourselves when things haven’t gone how we hoped?

This kind of growth is sneaky. It creeps up on you, like a seedling does, and you usually don’t spot it until well after it’s happened. You don’t notice you’ve got kinder until someone else says so. You don’t notice you’re more resilient until you’ve come through something you weren’t sure you’d survive.

So, What Now?

This time of year is good for taking stock — not in an anxious way, just an honest one. What has this year actually grown in me? Maybe more appreciation for the people who turn up for you. Maybe a thicker skin, or a softer heart, or both at once. Or maybe growth just looked like getting through it, and that counts too.

Whatever this month brings you — a wedding, a goodbye, a last few weeks of summer freedom, or just another Tuesday — I hope you notice how you’ve changed too. Growth rarely shouts about itself. Usually, you only spot it looking back, like a pencil mark on a doorframe you didn’t realise you’d grown past.

Take care of yourselves as summer draws on.