SPRINGTIME SADNESS
May 3, 2010
Today is November 24, 2010, the day before Thanksgiving and it is bitter cold outside. Snow blankets the ground and weighs heavy on the branches of the tall evergreens that surround our property. Sunlight sparkles off the snow. Icicles hang from the edges of the roof. Ice covers the roads. There are no cars, no street noise. It is quiet and it is beautiful. Thursday will be our first Thanksgiving without Christian. His birthday follows close behind on December 9th. This holiday season will be hard. Very hard.
But when I wrote my next entry in my Grief Journal, it was Spring, May 3, 2010. Spring sometimes comes late to the Pacific Northwest and this was one such year. The flowers were beginning to pop out of the ground, the ferns were green and beginning to unfurl, and the rains had slowed down. The days were still chilly but the sun was appearing more and more frequently. The time of year when usually I would sit on my wicker rocker on our front porch, have a cup of coffee, and enjoy the rebirth of nature. But not this year.
2010 came in like a lion and try as I will I am having a hard time sustaining any type of joy for very long. Highs are followed by devastating lows. Spring is usually a time when my spirit blossoms with the spring flowers but today my feelings are reflected in this poem:
The plum tree is pink today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
... William Carlos Williams ...
My depression is made worst because I am surrounded by beauty and I can't enjoy it.
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The plum tree outside our dining room window |
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One of the ferns in our backyard |
"Good morning Linda. So many times in the last week, I have wanted to set down and write you. I have read your Journal and shared your sorrow. I am so sorry for the loss of your Son Christian. I wish we didn't belong to the same club. But for some reason we do and we are coping and sharing with each other. I lost my Joey Oct. 15, 1993. He was 21. Seventeen years have gone by and I still wonder what his life could have been. I love everything you have written. You are so talented. I wish I could put those kind of emotions on paper. You give me the inspiration to try. We have so much in common, first by being great Moms. I guess that is just a start. We will talk soon..."
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