In 2016, when our adult child got married, Paul created a LOVE sign for the ceremony.
Four individual wooden letters.
L O V E
They stood above the couple as they said their vows at Sunrise Park on a hot day in July.
After the wedding, we brought the letters home and hung them on the shed in our backyard.
For the next nine years, we saw them every day.
From the kitchen window. From the hot tub. From the backyard where life unfolded season after season.
The sign became part of the landscape of our lives. It was a beautiful reminder of what is important.
Then life changed.
Last year we moved.
The letters stayed behind.
And recently, we learned the shed they hung on had burned down.
Everyone was okay, but … the letters were gone.
There’s something strangely emotional about losing objects that carry memories.
Not because they’re valuable…
But because they quietly witness parts of our lives.
At our new home, the view behind our condo is completely different.
It’s a deep wooded area. Birds are everywhere. There’s a stream below with trees rising on the opposite hillside.
No houses. Just nature.
I said we oughta put something out there, maybe some art sculpture, so we can see it in the winter when we look out our bedroom window.
So Paul decided to make a new LOVE sign.
This one is even larger—four-foot-tall letters mounted on stakes. It came out awesome!
Now, if you know right where to look, you can see it through the trees.
Not the same sign.
Not the same house.
Not the same season of life.
And somehow… that makes it even more meaningful.
I’ve been thinking about how often life asks us to rebuild meaning after change.
A move. A loss. A career transition. A relationship shift. A new identity. A new stage of life.
Sometimes we can’t recreate what once was.
But we can create something new that still carries the spirit of what mattered.
That feels important to me right now.
Especially in a world where so many people are grieving change while trying to move forward at the same time.
Maybe resilience isn’t about “going back.”
Maybe it’s about learning how to plant LOVE in new soil.
And that’s enough.
Love,
Maureen
