For a hard season

The hardest seasons don't ask to be fixed. They ask to be seen.

When someone you love is in a hard season, there is almost nothing you can do to make it shorter, and that is usually the hardest part about it. You cannot lift it off them or talk them out of it. What you can do is stay near, stay soft, and let them know they are not sitting in the mud by themselves.

Sometimes the hard season is your own, and the same thing is still true: you do not have to fix it today. You are allowed to look for the small good things, like the blanket that feels great on your lap or the candle lit on the bedside table because the light helps. A hard season does not cancel those tiny graces. Sometimes it is what helps us to notice them.

These are gifts for the ones in the long middle of something hard.