They’ll Be Back

This is the worst time of year for me, for all the reasons. The weather, for one. In January, the length of time until warmth settles seems unbearably long. The prolonged dark (and yes, I know the days are getting longer now, but still) feeds on energy, saps the will to do things. The gray that weighs down the sky becomes a solid, unmovable thing. My mom died during February, and when I think of that month, all of us beaten down by the extra misery of watching her die during a Minnesota winter, I remember her propped in a chair by a window, wrapped in so many blankets we could only see her face (the cold always clawed its way through the glass), and her eyes were unfocused and we were losing her.

Getting through January and February is all about pushing back, fighting the long, hard sad. Even knowing February is short, you might need a little help. A simple remedy—obvious, really—is to dip into memories of those early days of spring that smell so good, or those early days of summer when the flowers are in full bloom. If you work at it you can get those images to continuously swirl through your mind like a computer’s screen saver. I’m sharing these photos because they are helping me do that right now, so I can limp along, day by day. When I drove past that gorgeous pink-candy poppy meadow last year, out in front of a winery in central Virginia, I had to stop and sit awhile at its edge, watching the stems lean and the blooms nod in a breeze I wished I could bottle. You know the kind.

Flowers evolved that way to lure the birds and bees, not us, but aren’t they just delicious? Can you remember being wrapped in the warmth that lets them grow? Doesn’t seeing them stretched out to the horizon take the edge off for a moment?

I hope so. I so wish in my mom’s final days she could have witnessed this scene instead of a dull wintry world. Winter wasn’t her thing, either.

If the photos bring you ease, please stay awhile, won’t you?

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