Spring has sprung! (cliché phrase, I know)
This transition in season has brought daily storms, growing pains, many shades of green and brown, and renewal. As always, I’m amazed to see the living things shooting up through the mud to bathe in the sunshine…when the sun is shining, of course. But even if they’re awash in spring showers, they’re here, alive, waiting for whatever the world brings. My baby approached life in the same way. To them, spring is the beginning. Winter is past, summer is ahead, spring is now. I wish I could open my eyes each morning with that kind of expectation and wonder.
Instead, day after day, I steady my breathing, take labored steps and attempt to pace myself. I feel like I’m running a marathon. Our tight schedule, full of home improvements, cleaning and reorganizing, just felt the pinch as the band winds around again. Added trips. Added activities. Added surprises. Added concerns.
Our dog Abby, twelve years old this May, was diagnosed with cancer. This is the dog we brought into our hearts the moment we saw her. Three months after our wedding vows, she was our first joint project, the first living, breathing being to be placed into our care. Red and scruffy with a scrawny tail and a ravenous appetite, I was initially hesitant to call her a Golden Retriever. But inside she is as golden as the sun. Kind, loving, forgiving, patient, protective – when I was pregnant and afterwards when our second joint project was born – and resilient would be a few words to describe Abby. Blind, arthritic, stubborn, and single-minded would be a few more. However, nothing has diminished her best qualities from shining through. As the old song goes, she lights up our life.
Our son Ben, six years old this September, will start kindergarten in the fall. This is the child we couldn’t believe was entrusted to us. We agonized over his erratic sleeping, the food he was or wasn’t eating, his delay in speaking, the sounds each night as he was breathing. We rejoiced in his natural empathy, his broad creativity; we saw ourselves in his analytic and cautious tendencies. There is no doubt he is our child. Now as the eternal clockmaker keeps the gears oiled and wound, moving us ever forward, we approach the first time Ben will step into the world without our hands holding his own.
But life is a cyclical process, a series of beginnings and endings. Spring follows winter and we have turned the corner again. I’m fighting the changes this time. My usual embrace of transition has turned into grasping desperation. In some ways, I don’t want to see what’s around the bend. It could be joy; it could be disaster. I’m unprepared in either case.
What will tomorrow hold?
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Starting school is a tough transition. They pick up all manner of germs, bugs, unsavory behavior... But they also grow, tremendously, unfettered. It is a beautiful thing that now they get to go recharge their batteries and bring something new to the relationship, daily. Change is always tough, but this one is beautiful. I promise.
ReplyDeleteOh, my... I don't blame you for being consumed with feelings of unwanted change right now. You must feel unmoored and out of control. I'm glad you are able to write about it, at least; I think that really helps. I have always reminded myself to take time to enjoy the little moments with my children (and this includes dear Sunny), because it all goes by way too fast. I know you do that, too. I promise you will always have memories to savor, laugh about and rejoice in, no matter what the current pain.
ReplyDeleteI keep Hunter's Kindergarten photo on my dresser to remind myself of that bright and shining little boy with his whole future ahead of him, and I will never forget Halley flinging herself into my arms after her first day of school, shouting, "It was GREAT, Mommy!"
Ben is going to be a star. I don't know what will happen with Abby, but try to take each day as it comes and rest assured that she knows how very much she is loved. All dogs should be so lucky!