Life Wins
Don’t hate me but I don’t like spring. I am an autumn girl – I love the tension of blue sky and falling leaves, sunshine coupled with crisp air. Truth be told, something terrible happened to me on a May 1st, twenty or so years ago, and I’ve haven’t quite forgiven spring yet. It was an innocent day that started happily and ended horribly. The memories have lingered each spring since. I’ve tried to erradicate them with the help of two dear friends who went out of their way to bring light and beneficence into the season for me. It worked a bit and I was grateful. But nothing helped like a sermon I heard a minister give last year. Her words were simple and I believed them. She said, “Spring means Life Wins”.
Since that May 1st, I always thought of spring as a death…the golden sunshine was a reminder of how innocent I was the morning of that date, how hopeful, how blissfully unaware of what was to come, how I was cruely blindsided. The minister’s words, stayed with me last year, however, and I tried somehow to see the earth’s changes in a different way. Perhaps the golden sunlight would envelope me like a prayer shawl, lovingly stitched by a dear friend. Perhaps I could imagine the flowers as friends too, an audience looking up at me and applauding as I make my way through April, May, and then to the relief of June, when my mood naturally lifts on summer’s doorstep.
I began listening to uplifting show tunes, I bought colorful cotton pajamas to wear to bed, I reached out to my friends who tried to help me so lovingly. But mostly I meditated on the minister’s words that Life Wins, that the earth’s changes mean that humanity is always moving toward the light, and that no matter what horrific thing happens, the spirit tries to balance on the side of happiness and joy, sometimes without really trying.
Evenso, May 1st will always be a secret anniversary of the heart. But now the negative memories are only in my peripheral vision. Spring means Life Wins, and so will I, one spring at a time. Will you help too?
2 Comments
Lizzie, The Vintage Traveler
How lovely. I love the idea of Life winning.
Kay
Your minister is so right…something truly awful happened to Jesus several springs ago, too, but we understand that for every evil action, there are millions of positive ones to help us understand that not everyone is horrible and wicked. Hold onto the lovely, let the evil fade away. You not only survived, you triumphed, not letting this incident determine how you felt about something, even something as truly harmless as a season. Spring never betrays us..it always arrives, usually clad in glorious flowers and welcoming scents. Hugs, Kay