Do you ever have those moments when life’s deepest lessons suddenly click and you say to yourself “Ahhhh, now I get it!” The older I get the more I seem to have those “Ahhhh…” moments where things I have struggled for years to understand suddenly become completely clear and I think to myself “Gosh! I wish I had understood that years ago…”

For me, this happened today, as I walked in the park and looked at the fallen leaves and the frost on the grass. I was reminded that just as the seasons change, so do our relationships. People always come into our life for a reason or for a season.

And I reflected on individuals who have knowingly or unknowingly become a part of my life.

I realized that I had intersected paths with a handful of people for a momentary experience of happiness, and that was it!

Some people had stepped in my life like seasonal flowers; within six weeks they are there in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. A few flew off to more fertile soils with their seeds, landed and took root, sprouted, reaching toward the nurturing sunshine.

And then there were some toxic people in my life who like weeds overpowered my flower beds, casting a shadow in my colourful landscape. They sapped all the vital moisture, nutrients and sunlight, out of the ground, so too the ‘weeds’ in my life robbed me of the vital energy I needed to fight. These prickly people just kept popping up. Just when I thought I’d cleaned them all out, another one came along! Some were bosses, or relatives or even best friends.

There were also a few exquisite flowers which took years to come and took the longest to bloom. But these ended up being the most beautiful and strongest, bravely push through snow and even ice to grace my garden with their new dangling blooms.

A few of the flowers that had once died from winter weather suddenly took rebirth and rose from the ground painting my garden with diversity and beauty.

You may not think that this analogy is true, but it is, trust me!