Once again we in Ohio embrace the vernal equinox.  This spring is the earliest since 1896.  March 20th rolled in with some chilly 35 degree weather-which compared to last spring is a mild dream.  Despite the chilly temperatures signs of new life are appearing everywhere.  The winds of March are carrying the fresh scent of the slowly thawing earth accompanied by the lyrical songs of birds-which seem to be everywhere right now.  They have come home, making their long journey back up North, they are constructing their nests and getting ready to lay eggs.  Leaves are slowly emerging from their branches and are uncurling bringing little touches of color to the once brown landscape.  It always amazes me how almost overnight the grays and browns start to be overtaken by the bright greens of lawns.  The spring flowers give us a teasing glimpse of months of beautiful colors and days of warm sunlight.
The longer days and warmer temperatures allow more activities outdoors with our little Grandson.  I love these times, and imagination makes our little adventures boundless.  I am taking advantage of these days now.  Next year school will start and with that many changes-next spring the sandbox will no longer be a land of dinosaurs and villages.  A walk with the dog will be filled with different conversations. So I am breathing all this in and saving it in a special spot in my heart. 

​With losing a few friends lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what is left when someone is gone.  First the lifeless body-then the decisions of where when and what will happen to said body.  The family or friends may be left with the daunting task of clean up-death can be messy.   Next the shock, grief and frantic gathering of photos for the memorial service, all at once there are so many images and so few images at the same time.  The picking out of something this person will be buried-or cremated-in.  A few mementos of the individual are possibly set around for the service- recently I looked down and saw drumsticks which led to tears.  All this chaos leads up to a memorial of some kind-where people gather uncomfortably-the room is filled with the overwhelming smell of flowers-if silence had a smell it would be funeral flowers.  After all is the silence and emptiness.  Walking in the house alone after someone has passed is emptiness-a gaping hole that will never be filled.  Then what to do with all those things, things that a spirit doesn’t need, things that possibly those in life will cling to-the sweater or blouse that is still filled with their scent.  It seems so wrong just to dispose of all these things so quickly-things that just days before that person touched, used.  But it must be done.  After losing my Mother, and then my Father I read in some grief information to take pictures of things before you take them apart and get rid of them-all those quirky little things that were individual to that person-how they hung their robe, or set their shoes.  The things they kept in their drawers that were unique to them.  Even the way they made their bed. 
It is funny how the more loss a person experiences it seems to bring back the grief so quickly from years before.  I think the deaths that bother me the most are the sudden deaths.  The ones where a person doesn’t expect to die that day-maybe it’s a combination of the losses of life, or the job where I am exposed to situations where this happens.  A person gets up and goes about their day and boom, gone.  Just like that no notice, no good byes just gone-and there is just silence and things where they were.
Make sure the people around you know you love them.