Each November carries both the ache and the beauty of remembering.
I always start to feel November before it arrives —
the air turns crisp, leaves crunch underfoot, pumpkins line porches, and the sunrise glows in a way only November knows.
It’s beautiful, but it carries something deeper — a quiet knowing that this month holds so much.
This month holds the memory of that early morning knock, the hum of hospital halls, and the long goodbye.
It holds more candles than I can count — ones that were never lit but never forgotten.
Nine years now — and still, November moves through me like a tide.
Time keeps changing the shape of the ache.
It’s quieter now, but no less real.
I’m learning how to let the waves come and go — to feel the pull of sadness and still notice the beauty resting on the surface.
Evan is so many things — loud, loyal, tender, deeply thoughtful, a lover of the spoken word.
At his memorial, someone called him a zookeeper of introverts — and that still makes me smile.
He was a gatherer of people, a deep listener, a challenger, and a poet.
Before he died, he received a writing award from Sacramento State’s English Department — a recognition of what those who loved him already knew: words lived deeply in him.
His poem Open Waters reads now like both a love story and a prayer — a dialogue between himself, the sea, and the Divine.
““These open waters are no exception to His ordered work…When slumber claims me and nightmares reawaken my tired mind, she brings me to the surface and rocks me back to sleep.””
Even in his writing, there’s a kind of surrender — not about giving up, but about trust. About believing he is held, even in the depths.
And maybe that’s part of why losing Evan carries its own kind of ache.
We share a way of seeing the world — through words and reflection, through the quiet spaces where feelings take shape.
Sometimes I still find myself rereading his writing, trying to follow the layers of his thoughts. He wrote with a depth that often stretches beyond my understanding, and yet I can feel his heart pulsing through every line.
Alex carries that same depth in his own way — thoughtful, creative, and searching. Both of my sons have this gift of language, of turning what’s unseen into something felt.
Maybe that’s the thread that ties us all together — the way we each reach for meaning through words.
That’s what makes this loss so layered.
It’s missing him, yes — but also the pieces of myself I recognize in him.
So as November comes, I let it.
I let the ache rise, and I let gratitude rise with it.
I think of Evan — the poet, the friend, the son who sees the world in layers — and I whisper back to the sea that carries him home:
“You teach me to swim in the deep. I’m still learning. And maybe that’s what love really is — learning how to keep living in its depths.”
For all who remember someone they love this November — may the light be gentle.
