Every new beginning starts with an ending

by Bec Glover

There is something about spring that quietly reminds us that life is forever beginning again. It doesn’t arrive with fanfare or urgency, but with a gentle persistence that is easy to miss if you are not paying attention.

After the cold, the trees don’t ask permission to bloom. They simply do. After the longest nights, dawn still arrives, whether we are ready for it or not. And after the darkest seasons of our lives, something within us begins to shift too, slowly, gradually, towards light again.

As I write this, I find myself sitting in a season I never imagined I would know. Recently, I lost someone I loved deeply.

A soul who had walked beside me for most of my life. Someone I thought would always be there, woven into the fabric of my everyday world.

I believed I understood grief.

After all, medical parenting introduces us to grief long before death ever does. We grieve the life we imagined for our children. We grieve milestones that look different, or don’t come at all. We grieve certainty, and the innocence that quietly slips away the first time your child is admitted to hospital, and you realise life can change in an instant.

Over time, we become experts in trauma. Experts in hypervigilance. Experts in living with one ear always listening for the next alarm, the next seizure, the next phone call, the next unexpected admission. We learn to read rooms, monitor machines, and anticipate risk in ways most people never have to consider.

Yet this grief was different.

It reminded me, with breathtaking force, that none of us truly know how much time we have. That life can change between one heartbeat and the next, without warning, without preparation, without permission.

And strangely, it has made me think even more deeply about medical parenting and the families who live within it.

Because if there is one thing parents of medically complex children understand, it is the fragility of life. We don’t just know it intellectually; we live it every single day.

Hospital rooms become temporary homes. Chairs become beds. Machines become background music that we learn to sleep through. Our calendars revolve around specialists instead of seasons, and our nervous systems often forget what it feels like to truly rest.

Many of us exist in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. The inhale feels shallow. The exhale feels interrupted. Sleep is fragmented. Our identity slowly dissolves beneath medication charts, feeding schedules, emergency bags, and appointment letters.

Somewhere along the way, we stop asking who we are. Instead, we become Mum. Dad. Carer. Nurse. Advocate. Coordinator. Medical historian. We become everything everyone else needs us to be.

But beneath all of that… we are still there.

And perhaps spring is our gentle invitation to remember.

Not to become someone new, but to remember ourselves.

To gather back together the pieces of who we have always been.

Years ago, I asked families what sustained them through the marathon of caring. Their answers formed what I called the Focus 5s.

More than a decade later, these still hold true. Because caring is not a season for many families, it is a lifetime rhythm.

What has changed for me recently is this: grief has sharpened my awareness of joy.

Not the loud kind, but the quiet kind. The kind that has always been there but is so easily missed when survival becomes our full- time occupation.

It is the brilliant twilight star that catches your eye after sunset, when the world is still holding its breath. It is the warmth of the first spring sun on your face after weeks indoors. Fresh air filling lungs that have forgotten how deeply they can breathe.

It is waves arriving, leaving, arriving again. A bird singing outside a hospital window. A nurse remembering your child’s favourite blanket or comforts. A volunteer bringing coffee at exactly the right moment. A stranger smiling without expectation.

These moments don’t erase pain. But they remind the nervous system that beauty still exists alongside suffering. And perhaps that is what hope really is.

I often think our children understand this better than we do.

Despite everything, they still laugh or share in a smile with the biggest glimmer of joy in their eyes. They notice bubbles. They reach for sunlight. They find wonder in places adults rush past.

They are not inspirational. They are teachers. Reminding us that life is not only measured by what we survive, but by what we notice.

Medical parenting has taught me courage, patience, advocacy, and resilience. But perhaps its greatest lesson is this:

Life was never waiting for us once the hospital stays stopped. Life has been happening all along.

Inside hospital rooms. In the quiet between observations. Holding a sleeping hand. Watching sunrise from a ward window. Sharing a moment with another parent in the tea room at 2am. Stepping outside for sixty seconds of air.

These are not interruptions to life. They are life. As spring unfolds, perhaps we can give ourselves permission to begin again. Not because everything has changed, but because we have.

Like the phoenix, we rise, not untouched by fire, but shaped by it.

Maybe this season is not asking us to be stronger. Maybe it is asking us to pause long enough to remember who we are beneath caregiving, grief, and survival.

To re-imagine joy. To re-invent care for ourselves. To remember what was never truly lost.

Because every new beginning starts with an ending.

And perhaps this spring is the beginning of coming home to ourselves once again.

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About Bec:

Rebecca (Bec) Glover is a mum, carer, and lifelong advocate for children with disabilities and their families. Her journey began through raising her daughter with profound and complex needs, giving her an intimate understanding of the daily realities, emotional load, and systemic barriers families face.

Drawing on this lived experience, Bec founded Ruby & Ollie’s All Abilities Childcare and later The Inclusion Network to create practical, compassionate solutions where mainstream systems fall short.

Bec now works alongside families, educators, and organisations to advocate for better systems, stronger support, and a future where every child, regardless of their needs, has the opportunity to be seen, supported, and included. Learn more at theinclusionnetwork.com.au