A fiddlehead unfurls
Dear nature-loving friends,
This is an unscheduled post. Why? Because my heart is full, and I need to open the floodgates. I need to release this torrent of joy and sadness threatening to burst through that small, tight space behind the sternum.
This is the song of spring, isn’t it? Every year. Miracles of new life. Beauty unfurling in a million shades of green. Our eyes and ears so eager, so hungry. Our hearts struggling to hold it all.
This afternoon my husband and I dropped our daughter at the airport. She had been with us for a week. A whole week. What a gift she gave us, a 24-year-old spending most of her vacation with her aging parents at our quiet house out in the middle of nowhere—a place where there’s not much to do other than watch sunlight roll across the mountains and listen to the Eastern phoebe who sings from our roof every morning.
As we pulled away from the drop-off line in front of the terminal, she was walking beside our car, rolling her suitcase along the sidewalk.
She turned, smiled, and waved one last time. I burst into tears. By the time we got to the interstate, my husband was wiping his eyes, too.
You raise them, you fall in love with them, you let them go. Over and over and over. It just about kills you, every time.
Back at home, we headed pretty quickly for a walk in the woods. I knew (or hoped) that nature would offer solace. That out on the trail we’d find something magical, something to remind my heart how to be happy.
I was hoping for a link to the loveliness of spring. A symbol for beginnings that happen again and again.
I found …. this.
This is so beautiful. I have only been on the other side of these goodbyes. I am 53 and my parents are two of my best friends. During Covid we began to Zoom every Saturday morning. We still do, sharing fiction, philosophy, movies, politics, laughs, pet stories, fears, sorrows, hopes. Often we talk for 3 hours. I savor. I savor. I memorize their beloved faces.
This made me a bit emotional as a daughter who has been on the other side of this story, the many times I've had to say goodbye to my parents after spending time with then. Nature always gives us something we need.