Main image by Alexia François on Unsplash
8th December 2024
Numbers and dates call out to me, loudly and persistently. I remember birthdays, anniversaries, death dates, and the intricate patterns that weave through them.
Today is 8th December 2024—a day with resonance all of its own. It marks a cousin’s 60th birthday and a friend’s 70th.
But more significantly—at least to me—Mike died on the 8th of April. He was 19,615 days old. On 8th December 2020, I reached that same age. Now, four years later, at 21,098 days old, I am 1,483 days older than Mike ever was. Such a huge number of days older, though not necessarily wiser.
Numbers carry a kind of magic—especially 7 and 8, at least for me. The number 8 feels infinite, its shape mirroring the golden ratio found in spirals: the unfurling of snail shells, the sweep of galaxies, the eternal rhythm of nature. Today, I drew the card Spiral Time (*), a reminder that history rhymes. Time is not linear; it loops and curves, drawing us close to, then far from, the winds of previous times and turns.
Mike and I shared the same digits in our birth dates—27 07 1963 and 27 03 1967—a symmetry that spoke to me of deep interconnectedness. Numbers and spirals carry both repetition and change. This time is like others I have known: I am well loved, healthy, and surrounded by my children, parents, brothers, and a sister. I love my work. I truly love life.
And yet, this time is so unlike what came before. My husband is dead. My youngest child is dead. I have two brothers, not three. I am “big sister” to a sister, but no longer to a brother. I have one daughter, not two. The man who loves me most in the world, who is alive and breathing, is called Medjool, not Mike.
The spiral nudges me to think beyond today’s patterns and rhythms. In many wisdom traditions, we are called to consider seven generations hence—how the choices we make today ripple forward, shaping lives we will never meet. Spirals create space for this reflection. We revisit the past not to stay there, but to deepen our understanding of how presence, grief, love, and joy inform what comes next.
Birth and death, love and grief, like the spiral of life, never truly end; they continuously expand, teaching us to see anew each time we draw close again.
Today, the 8th, reminds me of these cycles: how history rhymes, how it draws me back—forever changed, forever the same, forever whole.
*Cards for Life, by Tom Mansfield
Card from Tom Mansfield’s Cards for Life
