On the Precipice of Spring

The end of winter draws on so long. There is a special kind of stagnation that the end of winter embodies. A stagnation of the tiredness of cold and snow and also a hope. A hope that is shown to each of us in the first signs of spring. The grass starts to come back, the snows get heavier and more wet, the birds start to be very active, plants start to show tuffs of green even through the snow and Easter is around the corner. Winter though holds on. I seeks to destroy that hope that is just under the surface. This is the time where my human body struggles with a hibernation state. I don’t want to engage. I want to sleep. I don’t want to start anything new just yet. The last moments of winter’s depressive state remain strongly rooted in my body.

Easter is the full hope….the full hope for humanity and the full hope that new growth is coming. It is one of my favorite holidays and yet it is not even considered a holiday. Amazing that the thing that changed everything for our humanity isn’t even celebrated by the masses. For years now I have wanted to attend Easter sunrise service at Red Rocks but there has always been an excuse. This year the excuse is COVID will take away from the experience. Just as Christ knew he would die, we too know we will die but specifically when and how we don’t know. It seems to me that it is almost a particular torture to actually know. Overall thought I know that when my time comes it will come. There is not stupidity in that…I am not going to stand in the street and see if I get hit, I am not going to jump off a bridge and see if I live, I’m not going to go around trying to inhale other’s exhalations but I am not really afraid of getting COVID either. So, for me the implemented protective measures our government have deemed “safe” are no more than a show for other humans to me and I really just comply to not rock to boat but intellectually I know it does nothing to prevent a virus from spreading. I personally feel like I’m losing out on the human experience to continuously cover up our faces in the midst of other humans and if anything find this more devastating to the human race than the virus itself. Sadly, Easter again will be in the shrouds of masks but at least perhaps live church celebrations may occur.

Other than Easter, this in between time of winter and spring marks other things. It marks my sister’s birthday and my sister’s death, neither of which I celebrate. Even so I am petitioned by my mother to remember and feel guilty for not celebrating this with her. I find it dysfunctional at best and delusional at worst in the midst of grief. A surviving child will always know that disrepair of a grieving parent. These dates to me are not excessively significant except that the later…the day my sister died would truly change the course of my life forever. Surviving in the shadow of my sister is a place I will never overcome or forget. I will always have lost something that could not be repaired, healed or gained. I don’t even know if I would have wanted that but I definitely didn’t want what I got- a lifetime of never measuring up to a dead sibling. Perhaps I am being harsh but the reality of it is there is absolutely nothing I could do in this lifetime to be enough to my parents. Living in that reality doesn’t do a lot for self esteem or importance or nurturing. So, in those things I am broken. Yet, my experience is not very unique at all and even thought it isn’t…there is hardly any literature out there for the grief and recovery and affirmation of the grieving sibling. In the loss of a child it seems only the parents are considered.

There are other things I think of in spring too though. I think of azaleas blooming, soppy rain storms with lots of mud, horses caked with mud almost impossible to clean and I think of planting. I start to get excited for gardening and I start thinking of vegetables and flowers and plants I can put in the ground and tend to. Gardening is in my blood and just like my father I love it. I am in my element when I am digging in the soil or encouraging my plants out of hiberation. I can’t wait for the growing season. It fills me with such joy.

For now though I must wait because winter still clings to today and spring has not yet sprung.