Spring Ahead

Spring is coming. I know  because this Saturday we are to remember to "spring ahead," i.e. to change our clocks to reflect daylight savings time. Looking out the window at the new fallen snow is not enough to dampen my anticipation. Spring will come.

Still, the changing of seasons is always bittersweet for me. For a brief period in my life, four or five years or so, two of my sisters moved to Minnesota. I live here because I married a Minnesotan, but my family is from Nebraska, so, while not a long way from home, most of my life has been lived separate from my family of origin.

Thus, it was an unexpected treat that my sister, Martha, and her family moved to a Minnesota town a mere twenty miles from my home. Now that there were two of us living so close, another sister, Paula, followed suit and moved to nearby Minneapolis. For those years we celebrated the seasons together. We gathered for holidays, of course, but we also went ice skating in winter, took walks in spring, swam and picniced together in summer, and savored the last few days of dining outside as fall approached.

So, now the season is changing once again, and I no longer have even one sister with whom to celebrate. Paula moved to CA and shortly thereafter Martha moved to Baltimore, MD. I love Spring. Each time the weather moves on to its prescribed cycle, I am eager to see what the new season will hold. But it also makes me a little sad.