Seems like I was just writing about the Memorial Day and Fourth of July holidays and now here we are at the unofficial end of the Summer of 2026 and Labor Day. Weekends, especially holiday weekends, can be hard on the widowed no matter the point in time of our loss. Once a time of beloved traditions and fun, these weekends can be a poignant reminder of what once was and this feeling often intensifies over time. 

For me, September is a month that recalls some special highlghts defined by my 25 year marriage to Rich. For just about the entire span of our union, and for the duration of my career as a Fine Artist, each Labor Day weekend brought the revered Seaside Park Art Show at the (New) Jersey Shore. In its prime, this event was one of the best highly-juried shows of the summer art season, if not the entire year. It was a time to connect with customers who’d collected my art for two decades and to catch up with artist friends to compare summer notes and art show plans and venues for the remaining year. 

It was partly due to Rich’s connections that I was initially juried for this event and from 1991 to about 2018, that gathering was a much-anticipated and highly successful staple in my showing schedule. Some years the holiday weekend brought perfect sun-filled days with warm ocean breezes, other times the remnants of tropical depressions and hurricanes wreaked havoc, or merely caused the use of the dreaded rain date, which was never quite the same. 

That show still takes place, as confirmed by the Seaside Park Boro Facebook Page. Sadly, many of the artists with whom I used to share that space and place are no longer with us. I’m glad to possess some of their art that still hangs in my homes in Georgia and Florida. Fine art is timeless and serves as a fond memory of a very different stage of my life.

I still get requests and inquiries from former clients and that always make me feel validated and happy. I lived my dream of being a Full-time artist with a partnership that helped to make that possible. It’s never lost on me that Rich and I met at an art event and our relationship grew through that network. I have never returned to painting although I truly want to. I’m just waiting for “the switch” to be turned on. It will happen in the right time. If I do, I’ll share in next week’s post. 

And of course September brings what would’ve been my 30th Wedding Anniversary and the three-year anniversary of my purchase of a lovely log home in the heart of Old Florida, and the start of an entirely new life, something unimagineable just six years ago when Rich and I closed on our Dream Home in Georgia. 

I hope you all find ways to make your long weekend enjoyable. Who knows, maybe I will really actually pick up a brush and dabble. Good luck to all my artisan friends who will be presenting their creativity this weekend and comforting thoughts to those who are grieving and struggle with these long weekends. Please share anything you did to make it positive weekend, or just survivable. Day by day we go. Happy Labor Day Weekend.