February
Why the worst months of the year can teach the best lessons.
Exactly one year ago (2/25/25) I wrote the following on social media:
February is interesting each year … will it feel more like winter or spring? Nine days ago was pure joy as I baptized my daughter. Yesterday I witnessed my dad pass in peace surrounded by his family. The human experience is essentially a Wisconsin February. The harshness of winter but with hope. Subtle tastes of spring that often don’t last long enough. Highlands and heartache. Gravity and gladness.
So here we are a year later. Back in February. There is something about this month that teaches us about the contrast and blending of hope and heartache. It can be even comical some winters, especially in the Midwest. Consider last month when we flew back from Costa Rica (92 deg F) and landed in Minneapolis (-25deg F windchills) with whiteout snow & white knuckle driving home from the airport. That’s called whiplash. But even in the grind of a Midwest winter, we’ve had unseasonably cold (-30 degF windchills) and unseasonably warm (upper 40’s!!) temperatures throughout the same location within the same month (February).
As I reflect on my first full year of my first touches of grief and heartache, it feels as though the last twelve months were 12 straight Februarys. It was neither despairing nor delightful, but it certainly was both hurtful and hopeful at the same time. As dad’s memorial service slideshow soundtrack puts it, we’re constantly caught up and meeting God in “the highlands and the heartache all the same.”
I recently saw a quick post by the late James Van Der Beek (battling cancer at the time) about how the new year shouldn’t start in January and it got me thinking more. Why January & February as a “start”? The worst & most depressing months (proven with data) is how we start the year and expect to get all “excited” for our new beginnings? That’s kind of like driving to Disneyland with all the anticipation to plunge into a magical day, but first let’s kick things off by visiting the bathroom and barfing BEFORE we go on the rides? Yeah, great. Let’s do the worst part first! Sounds fun. In general, barfing comes AFTER we’ve enjoyed the rides all while eating too many waffles, waffle fries, and … waffle cones.
The very end of February is my new beginning of the year. 2/25 is my new new year’s day. There was some kind of closure and “ok, what’s next?” this week leaving dad’s grave. I don’t really know what closure means because there were tears then and then again today, but there was something or some kind of sentence in our story that God put a period on. It’s certainly not the final chapter, but some kind of sentence, paragraph, or chapter concluded. His headstone was beautiful. The sky blue. The wind whipping cold. The words spoken beautifully. The silence just as beautiful. I’ve been there alone in the rain on his birthday and surrounded by loved ones in the sun. It hits differently each time, but it hits. The 45 minute drive out helps me disconnect and my drive back yesterday helped me think of what we’ve thrown against the wall this year as ways to help. What’s worked and what hasn’t? What’s stuck? What should we continue to go back to in our grief?
As I reread dad’s eulogy this week, I almost burst out laughing. Part of it reads:
“Never one to shy away from new challenges, Randy embraced a second career in literature after an early retirement from medicine. With a deep love for reading and writing, he pursued an English degree …”
I’m not endeavoring into a new career, trust me (it would be my fourth), but what has actually helped and stuck this past year as I’ve crawled in and out of depression, despondency, and distraction?
New Challenges. 2026 will bring some new challenges in business and running. I’ll be running the Boston Marathon (April) and I’ve been accepted (in a 6% chance lottery) to the High Lonesome 100 mile mountain race (July) in Colorado. This race will be my hardest endeavor and most challenging course yet at altitude. It borders the collegiate peaks South of Twin Lakes / Leadville area in the mountains my dad took us to all growing up and the last time we were in Colorado together.
Reading. I’ve always read “here and there” and am consistent with Bible reading so that continues to be a lifeline. Reading truth. Studying complexities of our human experience in the physical, mental, and spiritual capacities. But … this year fiction has come back to me. The Hobbit. Harry Potter. I’ll be going through The Lord of the Rings with the kids soon (if they want to, otherwise alone!). There are different parts of the brain (creativity and discovery) that light up when I’m able to enjoy God’s creativity by escaping the real world.
Writing. I’ve done more journaling and will continue to share some, but not all, of my ramblings. I don’t pretend to be helpful to others or good at it, but it is a different kind of therapy for me to write. Sometimes short, sometimes long. For myself, for others. I sometimes chew on thoughts for a long while or just blast through others. Similar to prayer, the only way we can do it “wrong” is to “try to figure it out perfectly”. Honesty is the best policy and writing continues to open up creativity and connection in a way that other parts of my life don’t.
Let me add two more modifiers for all three of the above paths … (1) purpose & (2) long-form. Our challenges, activities, reading, and writing aren’t the end, but the means. They can help us be on a path to the true and better purpose with healing and the Healer. Process & practice matter and, in particular, long-form processes produce something different than short-term. Long challenges that need preparation for months and “success” isn’t really defined at the finish line. Long readings that help us shed anxiety rather than quick doom-scrolling that induce it. Long-form writings and story-telling that keep a congruent theme all the way through multiple chapters or experiences.
I still may post on social media with quick posts, videos, & pictures, but I am more and more convinced that having a faith that is unshakeable and getting through the relentless struggles and sufferings of this life will only be done with a long-form mindset.
From our attention spans to our physical fitness, we must develop the skills required to “be in the arena” of life for the long-haul. In my 42 years of experience struggling through this life and my short (but seemingly very long) last year of grief and disruption it’s been in the challenges, the reading, and the writing that have given me the tools to remain hopeful and purposeful in February as the cold wind can still be prone to slap us in the face.