Spring
I distinctly remember from my growing up years, my Mom always gushing on and on about the new buds on the trees every spring. I also clearly remember not giving a rip. She would always seem to choose moments we couldn’t avoid her to make such declarations… such as in the car on the 20 minute drive to church. “Yeah, Mom, it’s real great. Can you turn up the radio a little?” I’d say. For one, even though she was singing the praises of all the green, to my 8-year-old eyes, the trees looked just about as dead as they had for months. Not only that, but despite the two 60-something degree days we more than likely had a few days prior to cause the outburst, it had now been raining for 3 days straight and the temps were hitting a lovely high of about 40. Welcome to March in Western Pennsylvania… it’s hardly anything to get excited about.

Usually it takes place over a long time period, with little things that you don’t notice until it’s way too late. I’m honestly not sure when it was, but the first time I remember seeing a small sprig of green popping out from the bare branches of the trees around me, and felt an immense hope for what was to come, I knew without a doubt that I had become my mother.

Now, my little sister is the one getting the earful. In fact, I start before nature even has a chance to take its course. At some point in February, I make sure she takes a good look around her… absorbs the sight of grey skies, bare, brown branches, and dead yellow grass. “Just wait” I say, “in just a few weeks all this ugliness will be alive with color.”

It’s the first day of spring today. It’s also supposed to be a high of 45, with the possibility of rain and maybe even snow flurries later on. And definitely no sunshine. But in the past 10 days, spring has most certainly come. The grass seemed to turn to green overnight, and the daffodils are everywhere you look. And while there’s clearly still more bare than life on the trees, I only have eyes for the tiny flecks of green. It seems as if hope, and vision for the future, can blind you to the past that you’d rather forget. But at the same time, without the past, we'd never have a need for the hope. When Vanessa seems to just humor me as I go on about the beauty of new life, I remind myself of my own story. Vanessa will get it someday. It seems as if we all do.