THE WIND PHONE
Missing You in Every Season
Spring brings the most regret.
Every season since losing you brings a new wave of regret for the lack of your presence, the warmth of your embrace.
Spring may be the most challenging season, with all that blooms and bursts from the earth. In this third year, the seasonal change and your loss are measured in reality and tug at my core, my heart.
My heart says you are no longer here, aching yet, but you are here, says the voice in my head.
You still fly here on birds wings and find a voice in their every call. You journey with bunnies and ducks to neighboring yards, discovering greener pastures in anticipation of their babies’ arrival. You are the digging squirrels searching for buried nuts. You are the woodpecker tap, tapping on my maple tree. You are the children biking by the house for ice cream, which you loved scooped atop a sugar cone. You would have enjoyed it daily had you just acquiesced to your desire! How trite this seems, especially now.
You still sit beside me on the patio, clothed in golf attire and a light jacket. The firepit is burning warm before you, and you are sipping Woodford bourbon from a favored glass. Your words are in my head, and your wit is still comforting. I know your stories and humor. They ring in my ears and heal a wounded heart.
How does one explain that it is harder for me as Easter passes and summer awaits?
As the Myrtle you loved blooms brilliantly purple and the lilac leaves appear, I accept you ascended to new life but remain ever present in spring. You emerge as a bulb from the warm earth and enfold me as I sit silently, at times reverently, beckoned to awareness.
I acknowledge that I will never overcome this irreconcilable loss but merely manage and withstand it. What choice do I have but to carry on, to make something of the time left to me?
When friends ponder and inquire how I cope with solitude, and there is much of this, I admit you are still the air I breathe. You sing me lullabies in the breeze. You arrive in the rain and shower my garden with love. You deliver me peace, as does the brush-stroked pink sky at sunset. You are ever-present, ever-speaking to me.
As Easter wanes and April commences, I glance at the lily I brought home from church, placed on the altar in your memory, and I feel only gratitude. It trumpets your importance and proximity.
No, I am never alone. I carry you wherever and whenever I wander or sit motionless to contemplate your closeness.
I want people to know that solitude continues, but love like this never ends.
“You gave me a forever within the numbered days and I can’t tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity”― John Green
