Spring is in the air. The daffodils and crocus are blooming. A new emerald green spreads across the lawn, covering the crackling brown of winter. The birds twitter in the pink blossoms. It is so beautiful, but I know it will be short-lived.
The summer will carry the pink away, and then the yellow leaves of autumn will sprinkle the trees. Soon they will be full-blown orange and red. The world will be a panorama of different beauty. Summer will be forgotten, and thoughts of winter will come with the chill of breezes that shake the dappled trees.
It makes me think of a Shakespeare sonnet I memorized in an acting class when I was in college. Back then, when I was young, I didn’t think too much about the seasons of my life. It all passed so quickly. Now, my hair is laced with strands of silver, and I move with a certain precision. The energy of summer is gone, and I long for my pillow at night. Oh, I’m not old, if you compare me to the mountains and the stars in the sky. I am a spring chicken, but I certainly feel the coming of winter. Shakespeare said it well in "Sonnet 73."
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Let me put it in a modern vernacular.
You can see autumn in my life,
Where a few yellow leaves cling to the empty branches.
The birds of spring and summer are gone
as I stand in the twilight of my life.
The sun is growing dim in the west and soon the darkness
will wrap all nature up in the sleep that mimics death.
You can see in me in the glowing embers of a fire
My youth is only ashes and rests on the coals of a deathbed
where it must forever sleep.
Memories are all-consuming, but thoughts of tomorrow
make me keenly aware that love is the only thing that matters.
And it grows stronger because soon I will all be gone forever.
As I look back on my yesterdays, I have very few regrets. My childhood was a time of sweetness when I was clasped in the arms of family love. We worked together in the garden. We gathered wood, ate together, played and prayed together. We roamed through the forests building pine needle castles and imagining the world was a safe haven for every child and creature of the Earth. We thought every story ended happily ever after. We made paper dolls and had a thousand children made of sticks.
We never looked at the neighbors and wished we had what they had. They had what we had. We didn’t have a television to make us envious. We simply had what we had, and we enjoyed it. We were alone in the glorious pages of our imaginations. We sang together and thought we were the new stars of tomorrow. We swam in muddy tank water and splashed in the puddles after the rain. We curled up in corners to read the latest western or romance novel. We told stories and listened to our parents tell stories that had lived for generations on the tongues of our ancestors, and we learned about the ways of God.
We were connected to nature as the stars are connected to infinite space. We cried when the mare broke her leg and had to be put down, but were delighted to feed the colt on a bottle. We found joy in the yellow puffs of newborn chickens and cuddled the runt of the litter when the sow gave birth. We went on cattle drives and camping trips. We had family reunions and played with our myriad of cousins. We watched sunsets and sunrises. We knew the stars and the constellations of the sky. We watched the billowing clouds bring the thunder and saw the flash of lightning illuminate the sky, and were glad for the blessing of a house that through love became a home. We watched the winter fill up with snow and saw the flicker of Christmas lights on the silver whiteness. We knew we were snuggled in the arms of a family who cared more about people than things.
My teenage years were lonely because I started to learn there was unkindness in the world. I felt the persecution of classmates and saw them make choices that would one day cause them great sorrow. During this time, I found my pen. I began to write the imaginations of my dreams. I saved scraps of paper and brown paper bags to tell the grandiose visions of my mind. My family was my kind audience. They always told me in glowing terms that they loved my stories. Today, I read my writing and wonder how they could see such magnificence in such ordinary stories. They saw with the eyes of love.
The changing seasons changed me from a child into an adult. As I traveled, I watched the world change from blankets of love to barbed-wire fences as the definition of the family began to be more tolerant. The family no longer meant father, mother and children. It meant live-in friend, significant other, even strangers living in the same household. I was glad I found a traditional family to marry. Reg Tenney and his six children were a ready-made family who did not adopt the new definition of family.
As years went by, I saw how the new definition of the family was destroying individuals. We brought five adopted children into our home who were products of that new definition. We could see their pain and their disconnectedness, and try as we might, we could not give them the feeling of security and love I had known as a child. Their childhood was irreparably tarnished by the choices of parents who believed moral traditions were old-fashioned and the family is only a place to be born, and those choices were made on the whim of the moment and not through the lens of eternal bonds of love. It was hard for them to see love through the eyes of mistrust and abandonment.
As years slip away, I sit in the winter of my life. I glory in my yesterdays. I bless my God for giving me a family and allowing me to grow up in a society where love is the golden thread that ties loved ones together from one generation to the next. I glory in the fact that I grew up with Christian parents who believed God is the creator and nurturer of the universe. I am glad they were not confused about the origin of man and beast. They knew they were a part of an eternal plan designed by a master builder.
The coming of a new spring reminds me that seasons are fleeting. When the yellow leaves come in the fall and flutter to the Earth and winter comes with ice freezing the world in gray darkness, I am glad my parents knew that spring would come again and life would go on as God intended.
When my winter ends and finally I sleep in the quiet tomb of yesterday, I am glad I know that one day I will rise to a new spring of life with my Savior. He will wipe away all tears. He will comfort those who grew up without the blanket of a family and will heal their wounds with His atoning blood. His love is what really matters. He gave his life on Calvary and slept in the tomb and rose again on the third day. His love will heal all suffering; even if now we cannot see how, it will be done.
