Where is Spring?

I’m in a funk. I think I can just smell spring around the corner, but the March weather has me bumming. I’m SOOOOO ready for spring. We had chicken on the grill and the windows open on Monday and now today is rainy and cold. Blech. I know it will make for green grass later on, but I’d just love a warm, sunny, 75 degree day right now.

Easter is one of my favorite holidays because it often happens around my birthday in April. I distinctly remember when all the Easter/spring decorations were on display in 2004. It hit me like a ton of bricks one day when I was in the grocery store that I was still alive. I know that sounds strange, but I really didn’t think I was going to live through the winter of 2003/2004. I knew that I would probably live through the cancer and the subsequent chemo treatments, but I was not at all sure that I would still be alive after the blood clots I’d had. I remember coming home from the hospital, sitting at the top of the stairs in our townhouse just outside my bedroom, feeling very out of breath (common when you have blood clots in your lungs) and telling my mom that I was terrified that something would happen to me because I was no longer in the hospital where I was hooked up to all the heart monitors and other tubes. No one was watching me anymore. Obviously, they wouldn’t have discharged me from Fairfax Hospital if they hadn’t thought I would be OK, but I wasn’t convinced.

As winter turned into spring, and I slowly started to feel better, I went to grocery store to pick up a few things…and seeing the Easter stuff, I realized I was still alive and I’d lived long enough to see spring’s arrival. I started to cry – right there in the store…not because I was sad, but because I was so relieved I was still here. I’m still both a little melancholy and simultaneously grateful whenever I see the Peeps, Cadbury Eggs and Easter baskets.

I’m often mentally caught in between being so grateful I’m alive, with a terrific, handsome hubbie and 2 great kids – and feeling guilty that I’m still here, yet many of the friends I’ve met in the past 4 years are not. An acquaintance of mine, Mary, just passed away about 3 weeks ago from ovarian cancer. Like me, she was a young mom, married 7 years, 2 children similar ages to mine, and yet no matter how hard she fought, she did not survive. She and I had talked often about how to manage the disease when you have young children…I loved my conversations with her. Two years ago on her birthday, we all went to her house where a bunch of her friends and family had gathered to plant new bushes, flowers, etc in her yard – Mary absolutely loved flowers and having a pretty yard. It was one of the most blessed times I’ve had. If you think of it, keep Mary’s husband Jason, and her two children, Molly and Phillip, in your prayers – they really need it right now.

I think I’m going to put on my hot pink flip flops, pour a Diet Coke in my favorite spring cup from Target, and do my toenails tonight. I need a little “spring” to get myself out of whatever mood this is I’ve been in for the past few days.