When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.  ~Kahlil Gibran

If you need me, I’ll be hiding in the pool.

As February comes to a close, the arrival of March both excites and saddens me.

March means warmer days, springing forward, flowers, the beach, St.Patrick’s day and hours spent outside prepping for the months ahead.

It brings the 10th which was our “second second” anniversary. We eloped on December 15 but had our wedding and reception March 10th with our friends in our favorite city, New Orleans.

March also brings the 20th.

The first day of spring.

And two years ago that day, the last day of my husbands life and the end of mine as I knew it.

Yet again, the calendar mocks me. The colorful text announcing “First Day Of Spring” makes me want to smile and at the same time curl into a ball, clutching the page that I want to tear from it’s binding, as if somehow it will make that day disappear and bring him back.

I try not to let it get to me.

I try, and I fail.

It is forever in my mind that my husband died on the first day of spring of the year 2009, and my father died the first day of winter of the same year. Every remaining year of my life the calendar will remind me, no matter how hard my mind tries not to do the same. Even though each day I feel better, lighter in my grief , on those days especially, I will feel the weight return, and with it the sadness will come.

I hope that the first days of summer and fall continue to be kind.