The second full moon has passed

Last night was the Strawberry Moon

The second full moon since Dad passed arrived with heat, the kind of June heat that slows your walk and reminds you humidity makes it hard to breathe. We’re in a drought here in Virginia. We’re in voluntary water restrictions so it makes it hard for me not to tell the young girl at the bookstore cafe to not let the water just run for nearly 3 minutes. I don’t want to be that kind of person who fusses but this heat has been testing me. Why when I give you $20.40 for an $8.38 charge, do you not know how to return correct change. $12.10 is not the correct change. When I return the dime, you say “Well, I guess I’m keeping a dime.” So, I say, “No, put it in the till. I’m assuming you don’t have pennies.” Confusion on your face. I think “get off my lawn kids, I don’t always want to pay with a credit card.”

I walked the labyrinth at Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg in the middle of the day, when it was hottest. There were no trees to shade me. The sun pressed down and I tried to focus on it, the way it burned my skin, but in a good way. Something grounding. Something real.

I’ve never been good at meditation or yoga. Once, during a class, I fell asleep and woke up to someone snoring. That someone was me. So, when Leigh encouraged me to try the Calm app, Be present. Be in the moment, I tried. My mind is usually racing.

As I followed the winding path, I kept thinking about how much life has happened since the Blue Moon, the first full moon after Dad passed. Probate. Estate paperwork. Three trips to the dump. More than forty-five bags of trash and donations from the family home. Learning to hook up, tow, and even backup a trailer into a driveway, something I didn’t think I would need to know. But fortunately, Babushka’s husband and I go way back and he taught me in the same way that Dad would have—calmly coaching me and letting me take risks. Grief, it turns out, comes with paperwork, muscle aches, and dump runs because my family home is in the country where there has never been anything like trash pick-up.

After the labyrinth, I headed to the recreation center before my friend and her mother, who is 88, arrived. I set up a comfy chair for her and held two yoga mat spaces for us. The guide for the evening handed us a page explaining the symbolism of the Strawberry Moon: “The Strawberry Moon is a time to notice what has grown. We spend so much time looking ahead that we often forget to notice how far we’ve come. Like strawberries, growth doesn’t happen overnight. It ripens quietly through ordinary days.” Quiet growth in ordinary days. That phrase stayed with me.

The reflection questions asked: What has quietly grown in me during this season of life? What am I ready to release? What promise will I make to myself before the next full moon? I stared at the last question for a while before writing: I promise to keep making promises to myself. I promise to keep looking for joy and connection. Yes, I will clear the house. Yes, I will bury Dad. By the next full moon, my journey through mourning will continue. Those promises felt both impossibly large and surprisingly ordinary.

The Lambert ladies and I settled into the Strawberry Moon sound bath. The room filled with singing bowls and vibrations that made the room feel fuller. After, we gabbed in the way Southern ladies do. Leigh is one of my oldest close friends. There’s a lot of history there and I love that we can live our lives and then come back together like it’s the early 2000s living in Charlottesville. When I drove home along Route 60 right as it intersected with Rout 249, the road I grew up on, I caught my first glimpse of the full moon hanging low above the road. Once I was near my current home, I managed a quick photograph while stopped at the light before turning onto my own road. It felt like the perfect ending to a day built around paying attention.

The guide reminded us that the Strawberry Moon celebrates what has grown. I realized I haven’t cried every day in quite some time. I’ve learned things Dad always knew how to do. I’ve made decisions I didn’t want to make. I’ve designed his gravestone. I’ve begun making sure forgotten family members are remembered. I’ve carried on.

Growth doesn’t always look like cheery happiness. Sometimes it looks like competence born from necessity. Sometimes it is simply showing up. Sometimes it looks like learning to back up a trailer. Thanks, Tony!

Yesterday the daylilies were blooming. I suspect they always will remind me of the Flower Moon, the moon that watched over Dad’s final day. That connection hasn’t faded simply because another moon has passed. It has deepened.

The Victorians understood that mourning changed with time. They marked it in stages. I will be measuring mine by moonlight. The Blue Moon taught me that grief had begun. The Strawberry Moon reminded me that life continues to grow alongside it.

Next comes the Buck Moon, a moon named for antlers growing stronger almost imperceptibly each day. Perhaps that is what grief is asking of me now. I am simply supposed to keep growing.