I purchased these flowers about a month ago. Winter’s long fingers seemed to be digging deeper into the soil and I needed some sunlight! Yellow. The color of cheer. I almost didn’t purchase the bundle of hope but finally decided the $15 price tag for the color it would bring to my life was definitely worth the cost. I perched the arrangement on the island in the middle of my kitchen, where I could gaze upon its beauty and optimism over and over.

Central New York has since been graced with a week of abundant sunshine and I have bathed myself in light and activity. Yesterday, however, the gray skies returned and brought with them dampness, drizzles, and downpours…

Befitting, I guess, that fears (tenuous as they were…) my husband might be straying again, fell on such a day. And, yet, I’m a bit thankful these feelings didn’t arise to spoil my exuberance during spring’s trumpeting of its eminent arrival.

As I gaze out my office window, warm in my sweater despite a coolness in the air, I am also reminded of the day my eldest son was born. My husband and I, armed with the knowledge that exercise can assist in the process, walked in the cold, light rain as we attempted to decipher if the contractions I was experiencing were true labor pains. It seemed to make a difference and within a short time the two of us were loaded into my two-door Buick Skyhawk, with my suitcases and the newly-purchased carseat, headed toward the hospital.

Within hours my son was delivered via emergency cesarean. Within minutes he died from unexpected complications…

Twenty years, this coming May, have passed. Most of the time my thoughts of my son are as colorful as the yellow flowers I delibrately brought into my life. Interesting, now that those words spilled from my mind and out through my fingertips, because my decision to eventually celebrate his life, as opposed to mourning his passing for eternity, was equally intentional.

Day 2 of writing this post…

It is simply elegant how a few hours–that ethereal element of our existence we call ‘time’–can change everything… The clouds drifted away during the night, carrying with them the rain and drizzle. Spring is clapping her hands this morning and making her presence known in abundant sunlight. I walked out to my car just before dawn to the chatter of birds who, clearly, are as elated as I about the change in weather.

This ebb and flow of our world has always fascinated me… This fascination, coupled with an overwhelming curiousity and need to understand–to internalize that which I seek, weaving the threads of comprehension into my soul–has always driven me. This snippet I recently submitted to an open casting call (The OWN show wants to know our Lifelong goals):

On May 11, 2010, my eldest son will turn twenty. In Heaven.
Unexpected delivery complications and the subsequent
death of my firstborn set my life on a trajectory of healing.

Seven years later, while pregnant with my fourth child, I discovered that my husband
and one of my best friends were having an affair. It was that event that brought
me to my knees and left me academically, emotionally, physically, socially, and
spiritually bereft…

And yet, a tiny spark of courage remained,
fueling me to a journey of learning… a passage to healing and
comprehension of those inevitable questions: How? Why? Why me?