What was supposed to be an easy Tuesday morning became one of deep thoughts. I woke up, feeling heavy, sad and angry. It was the third time in a row I dreamt about my father. I miss Daddy so much. I miss his voice. The arguments. The random ice-creams he’d buy. The way his eyes softened when he called me “rukuterukute.” And his humility.

A friend once described him so well: “Your dad was the kind of man that if you poured water in his mouth, told him not to swallow, and left for days — you’d still come back and find him holding that water.”

As I went through a wave of emotion, I picked up my phone, checked WhatsApp and saw a friend’s status. It read:

“Don’t force things, but also, don’t let good people go just because they’re/you’re going through seasons. Remember that seasons change.”

I paused. And then I remembered one of the most popular sayings I heard growing up. Often, people would say “some people are in your life for a reason, while others are in it for a season.” Suddenly, my mind flashed back to 2021. But why 2021?

2021 was the year I started a journey into the unknown. I left life as I knew it in Nigeria to move to Canada. I was excited!  Even though I didn’t know what to expect, I knew I had big dreams. Really big dreams. But nothing, absolutely nothing prepared me for my first Canadian winter.

That year, I met a friend — let’s call her H. H told me what to expect. She tried her best to prepare me psychologically. She explained how the cold carried a sadness of its own, what brands I should get to kit up properly and how I could tell how cold it was by looking out the window.

I am grateful to H. She prepared my mind for what was to come. She tried her best. But no explanation prepared me for the reality I was going to face.

My first Canadian winter was brutal! It was nothing I ever experienced. There were days when I stood in the cold to catch the bus, which ran behind schedule because of the snow. I battled against the wind like they had a personal vendetta. I fought snowstorms and slipped on snow that had turned into ice. I was inches away from frostbite because I was a rookie in every sense of the word — unprepared and overwhelmed.

 It was a tough time. A strange time. A lonely time. I missed home. I questioned why I moved to a country where no one really knew me. I had no friends except for a few of my classmates. My living situation wasn’t great. All I did was survive or rather, try to survive.

But then winter ended. Spring came and then the very beautiful summer.

As I sat back with these thoughts, I asked myself: was there ever a time someone looked at me — not at my heart, not at my context, just at my struggle — and decided I was just a season in their life when I wasn’t my best and was going through my own season?

But it’s funny, isn’t it?  That behind the very idea of “someone is in your life for a season” often lies a subtle kind of self-centeredness. A concept I will call “meness” i.e., the idea that everything revolves around us. We’re so quick to dismiss people as seasons, but do we ever stop to consider the season they were going through or what season they are in?

Shouldn’t we be paying attention to nuances? Yes, I agree that a person can be in your life for a season but maybe, just maybe, some people aren’t “seasonal.” What if they were just going through something? A rough patch. A tough year. A winter of the soul.  One that makes it hard for them to show up fully. To love well. To be soft. To be present — in ways their fleeting winter might make them seem ‘bad’ for not being able to – when really, they were just struggling. Fighting. Battling to survive, to breathe and even grasp for the tiniest air they could find?

What does it say about us if we measure someone’s worth by a season they tried but just couldn’t show up as their very best? Does that make us myopic? Rigid? Uptight? Or even straightjacketed? Would it be wrong to extend to others the same grace we hope to receive?

People go through seasons and seasons go through people.

My winter in 2022 was better than the previous year’s because I experienced and prepared for what was coming my way. 2023 was smoother. 2024? Even better. I’m no longer the rookie I was.

To my fellow Game of Thrones fans, winter is coming.

But this time, I’m ready.