Nightglow Window

Early Spring

Happy March.

March 1 is a tough day, in that it's the day my mom died. It's been ten years, which seems like an eternity and a blink of an eye. Ten years ago Christy was pregnant with Sydney, we were living in the small one bedroom apartment in La Jolla, and I had just joined t-Dub the previous June.

For some reason I was happy my Mom made it out of the cold month of February, with all its winter connotations and into the month of March, which seems more like a month of rebirth and renewal. It was a hard time for her -- we had Christmas in San Clemente that year and we all knew that time was drawing close, that we had already been given seven months more than we were supposed to receive.

February 28, 1997, was cold and grey in Gainesville, Georgia, but March 1 was blue and sunny and warm. We took it as a gift. It was a day of profound loss, but also one of final relief that her suffering had passed. We opened up the windows and stood quietly as the breeze came off the lake through the still-bare trees.

So today I'm thinking of my mom as I step outside into an early spring day in California. Thirty miles away, Palomar Mountain is clearly visible and covered in snow. But down here, 5,000 feet lower, all the flowers are blooming, the trees are beginning to leaf out, and the sun has just a little more zip to it than last month. It feels like the land has woken up from its (short) winter nap and that good things are coming our way.

Today -- especially today -- that is exactly what I need to feel.