As I set up my calendar for the month, I choose a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it where I write phrases I hear or read that month that spark something in me. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For August 2026, my quote was, “The pain of becoming.”

The juxtaposition of this quote with my location for most of August was both incongruent and ideal. You see, I wrote down this quote, and a few days later relocated to a rental cottage on an island off the coast of southern North Carolina for three weeks. While here, this quote shifted around like the sand between my toes at the water’s edge.

Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that caught the attention of my head and heart this month, most of which came from a Francis Weller’s book, “In the Absence of the Ordinary.” I discovered Weller in my Grief Guide certification program, as his book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief” was required reading:

• It is dream becoming truth
• Practice being like a sunflower
• How can we, once again, come to see the holiness that dwells in the darkness
• Listening is the art of reverence
• To become immense also includes the radical act of welcoming all of who we are into the story
• Broken open to allow ourselves to be penetrated by the holiness that pervades all things
• We must be re-stored and re-storied
• Become a house of belonging
• When we approach with reverence, great things decided to approach us
• Help us remember three central things: who we are, where we belong, and what is sacred
• A beautiful and strange otherness
• I want to feel what we say as though the words were holy utterances surfacing from a pool where the gods drink
• We truly live in a gifting cosmos
• Gratitude is a spiritual responsibility; Gratitude is the other half of grief
• What do we need to stay present and engaged, and to keep our love moving into a world of radical uncertainty and change?
• We must recognize that it is also our responsibility to create and become a place of belonging for others
• Choose what you spread
• All that matters is that we sit down with joyful understanding of the great potential that lies within us
• Whatever we put our mind to is what we know

This beach has always been a “happy spot” for me and my family. We’ve come home here for renewal and connection my whole life. Memories are embedded in every nook and cranny of the island. This year, however, we entered into uncharted territory:  a different rental cottage after 24 years. For me it felt both like a needed change two years after dad’s death and as if the scab on my heart was once again torn off as grief’s pain rose to the surface. We were together in an amazing cottage with the waves in our ears, the stars overhead, and the laughter in between – but in this wonderful expanse was the loss of dad. The pain of becoming an adjusted version of our family both with and without dad.

He was missed… a wild post-beach hairdo not modeled, a sandcastle not built, a walk not constantly stopped to appreciate every found seashell, a puzzle not completed on the porch while others napped, “a whole in the bottom of the sea” not sung as waves rolled over us, a hand not held, his prayer not heard at the dinner table. He was felt… in memories, in spirit, in “dad would love this” exclamations, and in personal conversations with him on the beach.

While the pain remains (loves precious residue on my heart), I’ve come to appreciate what has become of my relationship with dad. It’s more expansive as it’s not limited to his physical body. I see his essence in more things. I feel his presence in more moments.

On my next to last day of vacation, I stood on the beach facing east, the waves rolling over my feet. The sun’s glow slowly, gently overtaking the darkness. The warmth of the sunrise on my face as light streamed through clouds. Then, as happens nearly every morning, seagulls periodically flew west up the beach—following the ray of sun forward into the day. One flew past, then another one which circled back and looped around me. Then another flew and circled around me in the other direction. Then, within about two minutes, nearly 10 seagulls were flying around me both clockwise and counterclockwise direction, like a bird tornado.

I stood planted, soaking up the moment, and smiled as wonder filled me.

“Thanks dad.”