It was exactly three months since his death. Seasons have changed. All lives in nature have changed themselves, as ordained by the seasons. It's later and later and later and later for them, helpless as they are to want to make permanent any kind of now. A dear friend says we only count days and weeks and months with this intensity for two reasons: after a baby's birth, and after a loved one's death. Three months feel as long as forever, yet as short as a single moment when it's now and now and now and now, so I must tell my friend that there is a difference between life and death. A newborn grows by hour, by day, by week. The death of a child does not grow a minute older.

—Yiyun Li: Where Reasons End

Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.