March 19, 2009

It was raining most of the day but it stopped around 3PM. George really needed to get out and let off steam. I realized that I hadn't had any fresh air since I came home from the hospital at 6:30PM on Tuesday and that was just the two minutes from the car into the house. We got on our socks, shoes and jackets. June was giving her mermaid a bath and refused to put pants on and luckily with Sandra here, I could let her just keep doing what she was doing. George and I went out the front door and walked down Union Avenue towards Ashbourne. Everywhere I looked were little buds coming out of the ground.

It was great to see them coming up on this gray, rainy day with me groggy from percoset. Spring flowers coming up, just the green part now, I can't tell what will be tulips, what will be daffodils. George and I walked hand in hand, down Ashbourne and then left up Mill Road.

So many afternoons we've taken this walk together, George and me. Sometimes I count in rhythm with him, sometimes we sing the 'ABCs', sometimes I point out interesting things. Today we just walked in silence and it was precious for me, to be out of the house, to be holding his hand, to see what a big, beautiful boy he is, to notice the buds coming up. We got to a big house at the end of Mill Road. George looked up at me. I knew he wanted to climb the stairs to the top of the house.

"Go ahead," I said and he climbed up. It was a quiet hour. He reached the top. I said, "Come down now, Georgie," and he did and we turned up Glenwood Avenue together.

It has been years of work together that have created these smooth moments of our shared communication. George is 6 now and because of his apraxia, he is still learning how to talk.

But he knows how to communicate, better than many people around me. When I came home from the hospital Tuesday, I sat down on the couch and he cuddled up against me. He didn't leave my side. Fred tried to take him and June up for a bath and he wouldn't go. He snuggled against my left side and fell asleep there, nestling like a baby.

We made it back to Union Avenue and stopped in front of our house. I stood in awe looking at all of the bulbs coming up in my lawn. How did they get there? Had I planted them last fall and couldn't remember? Had they all come up last spring but I don't remember that? All through the yard--on the side of the house--in the back--there are flowers coming up.


I don't remember planting them. Was my fall such a busy blur that I've just spaced it out?

I'm honestly not sure but my backyard is incredibly full and in a week or two, I'll be able to see what are tulips, what are daffodils, what are something else. In a week or two, I'll know if I'm getting chemo or radiation and when it will all begin.

There is something so amazing about this moment in time, being just on the cusp of spring's awakening, how the whole world changes from the dead of winter into a great big garden. And how my life is strangely full and wondrous at this moment, the loving pouring out from everywhere, bursting up from teh earth like bulbs I can't remember ever planting.

Here I am standing in the garden on the dreariest day, springtime pangs erupting in my heart.