Thoughts of Mom

My mom passed away six months ago today, Tuesday, September 13, 2011.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't still shed a few tears thinking about her lovely, gentle but profound presence in my life.  Today, I think back to my childhood growing up in the country and Mom's many ways of celebrating spring.  Mom had never lived in the country before she married my dad but she fully embraced the experience.  She loved nature and she found many ways to honor the rhythm of the seasons by bringing elements of nature indoors. In spring and early summer, you couldn't enter a room in our home without getting a heavenly whiff of blossoms. For weeks, Mom would fill antique pitchers and vases with a rotation of sprigs of forsythia bush, flowering current, lavender and white lilacs, and the vintage pink roses of my paternal grandmother's bush from our yard.  Right around our May birthdays (which were four days apart), we would pick big bouquets of lilies of the valley, which I believe produce one of the loveliest of all scents. In the early spring, Mom and I would explore our big backyard for signs of wood violets.  We didn't like to mow until the carpet of purple and white had been spent.  Spring days were also made for searching for the first signs of asparagus on our property.  On a day like today -- warm and sunny -- Mom would wash, press and rehang curtains.  Linens would hang on the clothesline.  Windows would be opened to bring fresh air in. And then there would be time for play, as she would swing one end of a big rope tied to the fence, so I could jump and jump and jump.  Mom was a spring person in every way.  I miss her light heart, easy smile and soothing voice.  Mom, this lovely spring-like day was made for you.