Here it is May. The hummingbirds have returned to the mountains of Colorado, my tulips came up, and the aspen trees are getting buds. Ah, spring.
Well, at 8000 feet, the season is a bit misleading, if not completely
MIA. The hummingbird feeders are frozen solid in the morning, and there’s still
potential to use our sleds. But nonetheless, as Alexander Pope sagely said, “hope springs
eternal”. Summer will arrive. Soon I’ll dust off my bike and kayak. It all happens, completely non-contingent upon my will
or desire.
This May is riddled with all kinds of changes for me that
make the presence of icicles almost a non-concern. My daughter—my baby—graduates
from high school this coming weekend. When and how in the world did this happen?
I still picture her toddling around, trying to wear her Mr. Potato Head glasses.
Last night, her father and I went to her final choir
concert. Singing is her passion, and choir has been her joy for four years. It
was a bitter-sweet event. As is the tradition in our small high school, seniors
can elect to perform a solo. For several weeks now, we’ve listened to her
practice a song and play her guitar in preparation for her performance. She
sang beautifully last night, without a hitch, and to the hoots and hollers of
her classmates. In August, she’ll leave for college. In Indiana. Why so far
away?
Not only is my baby bird flying away soon, but my son—the one
who has been living at home for the last year during his cancer treatments—has received
the green light to get on with his life too. At 23, he is more than ready for
his independence. With the effects of chemo fading into a not-so-pleasant but
distant memory, he’s looking forward, too. He recently asked his girlfriend to
marry him (she said yes!) and they’re making plans to move to Florida where he’ll
start grad school. And this all happens in two, short weeks—just another change to
chalk up to May.
He’s even going to take his gargantuan puppy with him. At a
very hairy and shedding 80 pounds (the puppy, not my son), this may be the one
change I’m not dreading. But the house will be very quiet soon, and the rooms
very empty.
No matter how I drag my feet, life goes on. Seasons change.
The landscape morphs. Trees will be in full leaf soon. The earth keeps
rotating. I will turn 50 and enter the fall season of my life, just about the
same time the aspen trees light up the mountains in a golden blaze.
Change is inevitable.
Besides sometimes jarring our status quo, here’s what else I’m learning about change: It may not
always be easy or desired, but it happens despite our dragging feet. And it’s
good. So even though I’ll be saying goodbye to an awful lot—my kids and my
forties—I can’t wait to see what’s on the horizon for a new season in life.
- Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
- Man never is, but always to be blessed:
- The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
- Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
