April Showers

I'm sure you remember how much I do not like the month of April. I sort of crouch down, hide behind the couch and wait for it to be over. April is always filled with disparate images of life and death and regeneration. It teaches me something though, a lesson I hold onto with all I've got. It's the crocuses. Even in the midst of loss and sadness, and a fear that nothing will ever get better, these tiny blue, purple, and yellow flowers push up past the old pine needles, hold aside the dead leaves from last fall, and declare themselves. They are not tall, nor flashy, nor even particularly spectacular. But they are a quiet spot of hope in a sea of decomposition.

In my early twenties- a lifetime ago it seems now- I lost my great aunt and cousin to a drunk driver the very same month as an ex-boyfriend committed suicide. I am loathe to think of those times and those sad, dark days. Let's just say it's more complicated than those few words. I didn't have a support network and did most of that healing on my own. I did it badly and it took a long time.

Anyway, April hasn't been a great month since then.

This last week has been particularly rough, and it doesn't help that I hold these things in. I'm trying to let them out. I promise. It's always been important that I compartmentalize and not feel things for awhile. So when I hear news such as this, I just sort of go on for the day or week. Then at a juncture which is quiet and in which I am alone, the feelings leap up and and the scream that's been sitting at the base of my throat will suddenly find its voice.  This week, in three days, I know three people who died. One from natural causes; two from suicide. All pretty devastating for their families.  As I type this, ever keystroke feels as though it's hitting a bruise. None of these men knew each other, but I knew each one.

There is always a crocus though.

Joy.

I have been very fortunate in my life, given my background and history. People sometimes ask me how my life turned out differently than those around me. I tell them this: I have amazing women friends.  I seek out positive women who exhibit kindness and generosity of their spirit and I befriend them. I mentor younger women. This is the difference between me now and me twenty years ago.

I tagged along with my friend Joy for a road trip to Yakima. No big deal, just a beautiful drive, lunch, time to talk and a bit of shopping. We listen to each other and we are vulnerable to one another and we plot revenge on our enemies and celebrate the good parts of our lives.  If Charlotte or Cathy or Patricia or any of my Oklahoma friends had been close by, I could have gone on this same road trip with them.

This is not to say that G isn't my biggest supporter. He is. He is who I run to when I have good news and bad, as my best friend through everything. And he has cheered me up this week and made me laugh and just sat on the couch and held me because believe me when I say that I crawled into my pajamas at 4:00 and didn't leave the house thereafter. That's love.

It's Joy who will scream obscenities out a car window with me. Maybe not a flashy friendship, but one which pushes aside the sadness and says that we will make it through another spring.