Losses, Grief, Transitions, and the Domino Effect

My husband and I just returned home from yet another notable life transition—moving our youngest, Autumn, and her husband David, into their first real home after college: new jobs, a puppy, and fresh beginnings. We left them this morning in Virginia, in an Uber to the airport at 5:00 a.m. After saying our goodbyes, the night before, I still needed to leave one last note on the desk—just like the notes tucked into lunch boxes so many years ago.

This has been an epic summer of hellos and goodbyes. I said goodbye to Scotland and St Andrews, where Autumn graduated on June 25th. She lived there for four years, giving me the perfect reason to visit eleven times. Over time, it became dear to my soul. Before graduation, I toured the Highlands and the Isle of Skye, wanting my romance with Scotland to feel complete.

It all sounds enchanting—and it is. I am deeply grateful for the love and connection it represents. But today, I want to give testimony to the loss and grief it also carries. For every new hello, it seems there are a thousand goodbyes.

Our lives begin with one great hello: “Hello world, here I am.” For a few brief years, if we are fortunate, we are surrounded by parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, school, pets, places, and familiar things. But life is filled with attachment—especially for those of us who feel deeply—and over time, those attachments accumulate. By 60, we may have known some people for a lifetime. My mom lived 51 years of my life; my dad only 29. I have now been married longer than my father was present in my life.

We also attach to places, experiences, and the small details that become woven into us. I have loved many places in California where I was born—Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, Yosemite—and those attachments have lasted a lifetime. I have also cherished my home on Siesta Key for 26 years, St Andrews for 5, Stuart, Virginia for 9, and Rainbow Road, Arkansas for 15.

Embedded within each are what psychology calls introjects:

“An unconscious psychic process by which a person incorporates into his or her own inner world the characteristics of another person, place, or object.”

Here are just a few of mine:

Catalina Island: The Casino, Garibaldi fish, waves crashing on the rocks, skee ball, the taffy machine, the platform my dad swam to, rolls of pennies, colored tiles, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, nachos and cheese at the Busy Bee.

Yosemite: tubing the river, tent camping, the Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Falls, Camp Curry, meadow walks, yelling “CHARLIE” across the river, lying on warm rocks beneath the falls.

Santa Barbara: getting married, the Harbor Restaurant, artichokes and clam chowder, a dress on layaway, the mission, my mother’s love for the place.

Siesta Key: my home, Christmas village, friends gathered at the counter, boating, the canal, Siesta Village walks, palm trees, mullet jumping, bichons, powder-white sand.

St Andrews: “gorgeous” scones, Tulsi, cathedral ruins, stone buildings, Rufflets, Autumn and David’s wedding, Ceilidh dancing, sheep on the hills, Costa coffee, Sally’s Quad, elderflower gin.

Stuart, Virginia: Lee and Joel’s house, fireflies, Vacation Bible School, Kitty next door, Fairy Stone Park, the basement and bat phone, the Schwan’s truck, Thanksgiving, English poppers, kitchen conversations, mornings on the blue couch, Sawyer in a crib, Gevalia coffee.

Arkansas: the Little Red River, the stone fireplace, trout fishing, Lindsey’s Lodge, The Vintage Rose, Red Apple Inn, cooking, donuts, the dock, the rocker, Greers Ferry Lake.

These are only a fraction of what I remember. Each place holds not just images, but feelings. To feel and remember so much is both beautiful and heavy at this stage of life.

I spent the last few days in Charlottesville, Virginia, where David and Autumn plan to live for the next couple of years. It is lovely—full of youth, intelligence, a strong church, and a distinguished university. It even carries familiar Virginia sounds—crickets and frogs—that stir memories of Stuart when my in-laws Joel , Lee, and David were alive and our children were young and close by.

Now we are leaving again. And the familiar ache of goodbye brings tears to my eyes.

The domino effect is just this: one domino falls, and the rest begin to follow. People I have loved are gone or nearing that place, like Lee, who just died this year. My own mortality feels closer. Roles and relationships are shifting. Saying goodbye is right for adult children—but what about us? When did it all change, and how did it happen so fast?

“Stop the dominoes,” I want to say. “I am not sure I can handle many more goodbyes—and perhaps even more hellos.”

In Charlottesville, I felt both joy and loss. Joy for the kids—their lives opening wide with possibility. Loss, because I may no longer be part of it in the same way. Their need for us is changing, as it should. But it is still a transition.

I also feel an internal shift. My capacity for change is less than it once was. I need more quiet now, and more time alone to recharge. Unless a place is dramatically new—like a recent trip to Budapest, where my senses felt fully alive—my energy drains more quickly. When we are young, life is about expansion. As we age, it becomes more about preservation.

Lastly, I must acknowledge the one true constant: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Holy Bible

I am deeply thankful for and dependent upon that truth. God will never leave me or forsake me—and that is what steadies me. Every good thing comes from Him, and this world is only a foretaste of what is to come. All things here will pass away; only the eternal will remain.

The only true buffer against constant change and loss is the living Word Himself. That is why I must regularly disconnect from the noise of the world and turn toward the Holy Spirit. When I run dry, it is painful. I recover by resting, being still, and drawing near to Him again.

Yesterday, while waiting at a stoplight after returning our Penske truck, I noticed a church sign with one word on it:

Sojourners.

What a perfect word.

“A temporary resident; a stranger or traveler who dwells in a place for a time. We are strangers before thee and sojourners, as all our fathers were.” 1 Chronicles 29:15 ESV

Sojourner captures exactly how I feel. I have been blessed to belong to people and places, yet I have also carried a homesickness for a home where belonging is complete and eternal—where loss and goodbye no longer exist.

C. S. Lewis expresses this longing beautifully in his sermon the Weight of Glory from 1941:

“These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire... they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

Today many live under the spell of modernity, distraction, and philosophies that suppress both the knowledge of God and the deepest longings of the human heart.

Freedom comes by opening ourselves to God—asking Him to draw us deeper, renew our minds, and restore His image within us—a prayer He is always willing to answer.

“Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:16 NIV