Brighter Skies Ahead: Forecasting a Full Life When You Empty the Nest

By Terri DeBoer

Inspiring advice on how to stop mourning the empty nest—and find meaning in a new phase of your life: “Relatable . . . thoroughly entertaining.” —Tracy Brogan, USA Today–bestselling author

The transition to an empty nest as children move out and move on to independent lives can be very tough, leaving parents with overwhelming emotions of sadness, grief, and, sure enough, emptiness. In this book, meteorologist and television personality Terri DeBoer reminds you that no matter how quiet your home may seem, you are definitely not alone!

With insight and good humor, she shares fifty strategies she’s discovered for weathering the often stormy transition to an empty nest, in short, easy-to-read chapters. Incorporating lessons learned from her own experience as well as from the challenges of the recent pandemic, DeBoer also provides practical exercises and reflection questions—to help you find hope, peace, comfort, and joy in this next stage of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781631955488

Terri DeBoer

As a television meteorologist, Terri DeBoer has delivered West Michigan’s “wake up” weather for three decades. She also co-hosts a daily lifestyle show eightWest. Terri's public journey through the seasons in life, from on-air pregnancies to the marriages of two children, and becoming a grandmother gives her a special connection with other moms and grandmothers. Terri's first book, Brighter Skies Ahead, Forecasting A Full Life When You Empty The Nest outlined the journey parents go on as they “empty the nest”; a season filled with melancholy and loneliness; sometimes guilt and regret. From the journey of publishing that book, she met her co-author and collaborated on this current project, Grieving Well. She resides in Byron Center, MI. Connect with Terri at: www.terrideboer.com.

Book preview

SECTION 1

The Grass Is Greener In The Rearview Mirror

Life is divided into three terms -that which was, which is and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

William Wordsworth

Chapter 1

Seasons of Life

sea·son (sē′z n) ¹

noun

one of the four natural divisions of the year, spring, summer, fall, and winter, in the North and South Temperate zones. Each season, beginning astronomically at an equinox or solstice is characterized by specific meteorological or climatic conditions.

a recurrent period characterized by certain occurrences, occupations, festivities, or crops: the holiday season; tomato season.

a suitable, natural, or convenient time: a season for merriment.

a period of time: gone for a season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8²

For everything, there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

As a meteorologist, I’ve spent my adult life (the past few decades) obsessed with seasons. More than thirty years translates into 120+ seasons. My professional life requires forecasting the always-changing weather; in West Michigan, a part of the country that features all four seasons.

As a television meteorologist, I’ve spent that same amount of time navigating through the tumultuous seasons of broadcasting and the media. When I started my broadcast television career, there were no cell phones, no websites, no social media, no Netflix® or Google® or Amazon® or Hulu®! In today’s media world, the explosion of technology has created so many sources for people to find information and entertainment; it’s a challenge to keep viewers connected to local television. Through all these changes, I’ve been fortunate to become an enduring constant in my local television market, even as the broadcast news industry has changed as dramatically and as frequently as the changing seasons and corresponding weather I’ve been forecasting. As with any successful career, I didn’t do it alone. God has blessed me with supportive friends, inspirational mentors, and hard-working colleagues who have created an environment for stability and longevity. I will share stories from these relationships in the pages of this book.

As a working wife and mother (and now grandmother), my family has gone through the biggest series of changes over these decades. From walking down the aisle and saying I Do to becoming a mother to three active children with demanding schedules, who I proudly say have now reached adulthood as incredible human beings. I spent at least twenty-five of the past years in the middle of a whirlwind. As a professional family woman, I’ve experienced those decades through different changing seasons.

Just as the weather and atmosphere are measured by seasons, so is life. The season of spring marks the beginning point as we are growing up and beginning our journey. Spring is a time of hope and transition. Just as spring storms mark the weather of the season, the transition into this season in life can have the strongest storms. Summer is the time when we are sailing along; starting and raising our families; progressing in our careers, balancing demands that go along with the rapid growth and change in so many different areas. Summer is often a time of so much activity; the days are the longest, and it’s a good thing because there is more to do than there seems to be hours in a day. Fall represents that time of harvest when we reap the benefits of our hard work and investment in so many different areas. At work, we have achieved our career goals. At home, our children are graduating and going to college, getting married, and starting families of their own.

As we transition from late fall into winter, we are becoming empty nesters and retiring from that career or job we have loved. This is a time when people often become preoccupied with looking back and reflecting on all those seasons that have come before, wistfully wishing we could almost have a do-over of those times we remember with fondness and melancholy. Winter days are short, dark, and cold. Sometimes we find it hard to believe there were ever birds, flowers, or green grass on a frozen and desolate landscape.

But before you kick back and settle into a long, nostalgic look backward, let me share something with you I’ve learned from my years in meteorology.

There is a difference between weather and climate. Weather is a snapshot is a snapshot of current conditions, including temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, cloudiness for a short period for a particular place. Weather is the overview for a few hours or perhaps a couple days. Depending on the season, some days are hot; some are cold; some are wet; some are snowy, and some are even pleasant.

Weather can be marked by storms and extremes.

On the other hand, climate represents a combination of all those weather conditions over several decades! So, even though parts of Florida may experience the occasional freeze, which may temporarily threaten the citrus crops, an average of the temperatures that occur over multiple decades reveals those freezing temperatures happen rarely. To be specific, the climate statistical model used by the National Weather Service, which is recognized to be the authority on climate information, takes a thirty-year average weather at a particular location for a specific date. This approach allows the variability from recent years to cold years and spikes of precipitation generated by storms and other extreme years to balance out over three decades. Since the weather is cyclical, driven by ocean currents and solar cycles, a thirty-year average gives a reliable number. From one day to the next, as the yearly climate calendar progresses, there is minimal change.

For example, in my local area of West Michigan, there may only be a degree or two change every day or two, depending on the time of year.

Knowing the climate data of a certain location will give the people who live there or visit a reasonable expectation of what conditions they will face in an average year.

Life circumstances could also be described in terms of weather and climate. Day-to-day activities and tasks are like the weather in our lives. Many days are quiet, with occasional showers and storms thrown in along with how we need to face or manage. Just as the climate in nature represents the thirty-year average of daily weather occurrences, our life’s climate is the overall status of our lives. The climate of our lives includes our home, lifestyle, family and relationship status, and profession.

The year 2020 was marked by an unpredictable storm; the Coronovirus Pandemic. This killer virus kept many people on complete lock-down for months, as it proved to be easy to spread and deadly for certain members of society. Even as many of those lockdowns ended, a new reality emerged with people wearing face masks while in public and practicing a new concept called social distancing, where people were encouraged to stay at least six feet away from others during any sort of