How to Survive November 2025 | 17

Today is a hard reminder.

It was honestly hard on Friday, when leaving work it hit me, last year this was our last ‘normal’ weekend. My heart just sank, we never know. This is why I attempt to capture as many moments as possible, as we never know when they may become memories. My truest passion of photography, I just love looking back at images and remembering the moment exactly.

A day, where I am truly grateful for this challenge, the slight irony of it being called “How to Survive November…” the timing, was what I needed, being pushed to be creative to participate in the challenges. Actually, I honestly do not know how these themes work, brain fog during deep times of grief is so very real. As well as feeling suddenly very overwhelmed. Surviving November, is now my reality.

So I need to choose to be present, purposeful and choose being creative, which for me is also the push I needed. But also, allow myself grace in the power of quiet, solitude, peace within and rest. As I normally would go out shooting, when I have the desire… if you aren’t feeling that spark or have ‘nothing’ to photograph – easy excuse with less daylight, you won’t. Much like the lens-artists weekly challenge I found this summer, at a time when I was feeling low, feeling a huge disconnect from social media and feeling a much more authentic draw back to my blog and photography. This was divine timing, I am grateful I was open to listening, that Saturday morning at the cottage, I had grabbed my phone and was checking out my wordpress reader and found the challenge! I do not even know what led me there, as when I found it, I emailed it to myself so I was sure I didn’t lose it!

“Never more than a thought away, loved and remembered everyday.”

A year ago, the unimaginable happened, Nov 17 was the last living day on this earth for my brother Adam. Today I share the roundness of the stone, the placeholder of his physical site and the other rocks with it. I am grateful to know and feel his spirit with me, and us, anytime I need to. Its been a hard adjustment.

Healing from sibling loss has been something I have never been faced with, until now, and am not sure when or if, or how I will ever ‘get past’. As the oldest of 4, him being next, its rocked me to my soul, in the most deep way. I know I have some deeper healing that still needs to happen. It changes a person, yet it also feels like you get lost in life. Life continues on, everyone keeps going. Their lives go on, yours does too, except that part of it, which turns out to be a very heavy part. You will get forgotten by many, others who always say they are ‘here for you’, they wont be. You wont even see them. Its ok to create new boundaries, to honor your heart and only make time for those who respect your heart. This has been one of the hardest adjustments.

Healing after a sudden loss is incredibly difficult, especially when it isn’t the first time we’ve faced a sudden loss, it just hits harder being my brother. People will treat you differently, and say things they shouldn’t. I’ve shared this before, but right after the funeral, as people were coming up to offer their condolences, a great aunt hugged me and mentioned that she had forgotten about me and my sister—the “bookends” of our siblings. It was an unexpected comment in an already emotional moment.

Or someone from my very distant past, with whom I have a complicated history, appeared unexpectedly at my parents’ home that same night after the funeral. When I opened the door, she stood there with her arms outstretched, as if I would naturally turn to her for comfort. This is the same person who, for years, supported the emotional and verbal mistreatment I experienced from her son, which made the moment feel deeply inappropriate and uncomfortable.

Around the same time, her son messaged my husband on Facebook, asking him to tell me to get in touch, saying he had already sent me several messages. The situation felt disconnected from reality and showed a lack of awareness about past behaviour that I’m no longer willing to overlook.

To be completely honest, had he simply reached out once, I would have responded. I would have acknowledged the condolences—despite my brother’s feelings about how I was treated—and I would have respected the effort to say sorry. But repeated messages, followed by contacting my husband, and then his mother showing up at my parents’ home crossed several boundaries.

And those boundaries I mentioned? They’re now very clear and very firm.

Its been multifaceted to this healing. Ive spiritually connected with my brother on multiple occasions, which is cool, but also hurts my heart. I know he is finally free from the pain that for years plagued his life both physically and emotionally, selfishly I wish he was still here.

If you know someone who experiences loss in their life, bend your heart to meet theirs – not the other way around. Its not easy to ask for help, and I rarely want to make plans. I want things to be ‘normal’, what the fuck is normal. To find the roundness of your compassion and softness of your heart. A new understanding of what everyday life now is, especially surrounding harder dates, even songs everyday, that remind, they are no longer with us.

I am very grateful for this ‘Surviving November 2025’ challenge through wordpress, I felt quite unsure about facing this month and how it would hit me. Although the challenges are a great distraction, they remind me to stay true to my own creative edge, the healing continues… and that’s ok.

The November theme details can be found in this post – think Round!

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