Navigating the Season

Well, thank goodness for sunny Saturday.

Yesterday I drove to church with the car loaded down with food for our potluck. The air was balmy and moist. Clouds rolling in. After a meaningful worship service, delicious feast, and inspirational annual meeting, I poked my head out the parish hall door and saw that gray winter had come back for a visit.

Most of our guests are welcomed with open arms, hugs, celebratory glasses of wine and feasts.

Yesterday's guest, cold gray winter, was not welcomed warmly. In fact, I shuddered to think of having to settle in with this foe of mine. Wet mist grew icy. Warm house grew cold.

By midnight a layer of ice coated the streets and a thin sheet of snow blanketed the green weeds and grass.

My heart is tempted to despair. Cold this time of year is quite normal. We get lulled into thinking spring has sprung then a blast wakes us up out of our reveries. I remember February five years ago and want to crawl into my warm bed, close my eyes and hope for numbing sleep to take me to warmer places.

Instead, I get up. Drink a few cups of coffee. Make myself venison and eggs. Do some bakery research. Work slowly, but steadily. Plan to schedule some productive solitary meditation. Switch over to herbal tea. Write a couple of emails. Read a poem. Check the weekly forecast a few times to remind myself that this visitor will be moving on by tomorrow, replaced with our sunny dispositioned pre-spring sixty degree normal end of February.

And I will try to allow for some dedicated time to remember Philip, all he brought to our life, all we miss because of his death. And I will spend some time doing some accounting. Accounting of all the amazing blessings that have come our way over the past five years as we have attempted to learn to navigate our new normal that still doesn't feel normal. February 25, 2010, two days short of five years ago, our foe, death, came for a very unwelcome visit. One that delivered Philip from pain, a worn out heart, bad circulation, into the ultimate peace and rest. And us into a very strange plane and realm. We miss him so much sometimes it brings a chill to my bones. To my core. And yet, here we are. Surviving. Thriving. Kids growing tall and wonderful and smart and kind and lovely and witty, despite it all.