A Gold and Blue Day

It’s mid-January, with most of winter still before us. Yet there was just the barest hint of Spring in the air on this beautiful afternoon, and I drank it in as though I were dying of thirst. The sun shone, not shrouded in haze for a change, and the temperature rose to 40. More significantly, the air was just a wee bit soft, and the sun’s warmth enveloped me, even as a light breeze lifted my hair.

There will be more cold weather to endure here in Idaho, but today was a reminder that Spring will, inevitably, come again.

I wondered at my blue mood, even as I relished the golden sunshine and the dog capered around me with delight. I miss my mother, no doubt about it. She loved the Spring, and her home always looked its best in the Spring. Each year she considered what to plant and went about her gardening in the Spring. Each year she waited for her daffodils to come up -- "daffy-down-dillies" she affectionately called them.

This year we will do Spring and daffy-down-dillies without her.

I keep reminding myself that where she is now in Glory, it is Spring 24/7. Indescribable beauty surrounds her. Winter is over for good and she will never know the biting cold again. Of that I am glad.

But there is no need to plan my annual Spring visit to the mountains of Pennsylvania. And, oh, how I do miss her.

- Catherine

Mom's place: