We buried my nurse-mentor sister on Saturday, and we bury a beloved cousin tomorrow.

As I sit at my desk overlooking Chicago’s Millennium Park, the trees remind me that fall is a time of changing seasons, when greens turn to red to yellow to brown.

And the colors remind me of the changing seasons of our lives as reflected in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.