Spring always finds a way

Julia ♦ April 17, 2024 ♦ 4 Comments

There’s still this: our York back yard, April 14, 2017

“…spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life.” — Charlotte Eriksson

Probably there are few spots of ground in this hemisphere that have been more neglected in the past three years than our once-lovely azalea garden in the corner of our York back yard. When we first planted additional azaleas back there over twelve years ago, we tended it lovingly. I pruned the shrubs and Jeff was careful to feed and mulch the plants with the acidic nourishment they preferred. Once he even gathered a big bunch of pine straw from the wooded common areas of our neighborhood because I told him that azaleas loved pine straw (or so my mother always told me).

But somewhere along the way, our springtime gardening got hijacked. Spring 2013 brought Jeff’s first liver surgery; Spring 2014, Matt’s fifth open heart surgery; Spring 2015, work crews and equipment were in our yard continually as our guest house was being built; Spring 2016, Jeff’s brain tumor and craniotomy, and of course, Spring 2017, his burial. That corner of our yard is now overgrown so wildly that I can barely walk through to the fence where Pasha is buried near the large tree. I wasn’t expecting much beauty to show up there this spring.

Lo and behold, though, that little patch of ground is doing fine all on its own. Two days ago I looked out the kitchen window and saw the sun streaming through the dogwood flowers, and had to run get the camera to take a shot to share with you.

Don’t you just love it when things go fine even when you aren’t able to contribute to the effort? This has been another week filled with bad news, but springtime always has something uplifting to say to me. I  hope you’re enjoying some seasonal cheer, too!

This post was first re-published seven years ago today. Of the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years, the ones of this spot in our York back yard will always be among my favorites. There’s still a touch of sadness that the home we loved so well did not become a place where we would enjoy our plans for shared retirement. But I’m comforted that another family will be enjoying the beauty, and grateful for the 17 years I had there.

The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.