The Wet Spring Snow

As I sit, with my morning coffee, a wet spring snow dances outside my window. It sounds like a fine mist hitting the metal roof on my house. It’s the softest, comforting sound that plays the wind in perfect harmony with the spiraling flakes. As I watch it fall through the Aspens, and swirl around their naked branches, it give me peace knowing that our soon to be Spring thaw will have it’s reservoir of drink for the coming summer.

The Douglas Fir and the Bottlebrush Pine shiver amidst the falling icy scrim. They pose, almost as if readying themselves for a close up with Mother Nature. The snowflakes gather on the branch’s like fallen soldiers in a field of mighty men. But, instead of dying, I know each droplet sustains it’s future growth.

The Junco’s and the Evening Grosbek’s flock to my feeders when snow and ice blow through the valley. They flit and flutter in hungry flocks. They seem to know automatically when a storm will last. I am always surprised how they can tell if fresh food is out, even in the harshest conditions. They come begging and calling.

How often do we also shiver when life bombards us with icy pellets piercing our protective armor and chilling us to the bone. Knocking our emotions from stable to unsteady? How often does life make plans that do not seem fair or modest.

When life gives us lemons, sometimes what we do is busy ourselves, like the hungry birds feeding on empty feeders. No matter how hard we try, though, busyness ends and we are left with scraps of loneliness, sadness or worse. Hope can sometimes be fleeting when it is comfort we seek. We struggle against the wave of grief when what we should do is float, letting the waves carry us to distance shores. A soft reset of sorts. Wrapping us stealthily in the arms of hope.

Grief has struck my family hard lately. We have been broken and our tears have been counted and saved. It will be only the passing of time that bind our wounds. And just as the icicles drip one small drop of moisture at a time, if it finds itself falling to fertile ground, it will mature and transform into life ablaze and anew.

As with the spring snow, it feels like winter will never end and grief will never expire. But it will and the embryo of the return of the life amidst the spring thaw will shelter us in her womb.