Wednesday, April 11, 2018

It's Spring Again

Spring is here and with it the usual occurrences that take place during the season. The days are getting longer. The air is getting sweeter and warmer, although you could barely tell this time around as the random nor'easter continually reminds us that winter is always coming, if not going.

My son is in school now and as a prekindergarten pupil he is learning and experiencing the same things that his father did at that age, if not more. Easter egg hunts, spring concerts, and the like, mark the occasion of the season. However, one event sticks out from all the rest: the viewing of the cherry blossoms.

My son attends school in New York, arguably the greatest city and state in the known world. Many great things are here in abundance. However one thing we don't do is as great as how the District of Columbia does do: the cherry blossom. Although I did not realize this as a child my son's age growing up in Brooklyn, thankfully my mother did. She would make it her point of duty to make sure that her children, in time, would realize this also. Lord knows that we do now.

My sweet, dear mother passed away earlier this year, and I do miss her so. It has been a vague and surreal experience, which has left me not quite sure how to be. I've told friends, family, and colleagues that this being the first time my mother has ever died, I'm not exactly sure how to go about it. (My mother taught me to find the humor in everything). It is to say the least, a wholly different outlook and a seemingly muddled forecast, for myself at least.

Thankfully the lessons and exposures which my mother provided for us throughout a lifetime, have appeared in a timely fashion, almost as a lighthouse in a tempestuous current. Those trips to Washington D.C to stroll the National Mall and to tour various important sites and locations in our storied nation's history have come back to serve me in a time of need, possibly always as my mother had intended.

So something as seemingly simple as my son's first foray into the significance, symbolism, and more importantly the meaning of these incomparable beautiful trees has lent itself to me reconnecting to someone and something I have always been connected to: my mother and her love.