Peggy’s prompt—spring—

Peggy’s prompt—spring


Spring. I’m not motivated to write about spring on this chilly, cloudy, drizzly day, even though the flowering trees are all abloom, and the flowering shrubs like forsythia and spirea are gorgeous. The day just doesn’t have a “lift” to it, even though I’ve just come from a raucous lunch with five of my cancer support group gal-friends. Even though we didn’t mention it, the occasion for the get-together was near the front of my mind the whole time, and that was to give Barb a pleasant outing while she deals with the death of her forty-five year old son from either an accidental drug overdose or suicide. Death, or loss, was the unspoken extra place at the table. We told funny stories in which we shared pieces of our past lives, we laughed a lot, we talked way too loudly, I’m sure, for the comfort of the other diners in the restaurant, and we hugged each other when we arrived and when we left. But spring was not at our table, really. We weren’t yet ready to deal with re-birth and growth and futures, not when the tragedy of the recent past was still so present. But we did our best to enjoy, to provide comfort, to “be present” with our grieving friend, who showed no outward evidence of her inner pain.