Down a spring time country road..

It is a bright sunny spring morning wet with the cool morning dew and the sounds of the territorial chirping of the red winged black birds and robins as they stake their claim to their little piece of the world. These are the mornings that I most enjoy the drive into town from home and the ones that evoke the most memories of the past, ruminations of the present and plans for the future. These are the mornings it is so good to be alive.

Lately I have caught myself thinking of what could have been and why things sometimes just don't turn out the way you wish that they had. On mornings like this I am still surprised to find myself considering how much the little pleasures of the moment would be appreciated by a loved one and then abruptly realize again that she is no longer with us. At that moment of realized reality the emotions flow and cascade with all the force of Niagara and then end in the shattered mists of memories and what ifs.

It is mornings like these that renew the spirit and heal the soul with its bright sunshine, lush flora and forever striving fauna.

It is on mornings like these that I realize that I am beginning to heal, beginning to forgive and beginning to move on knowing that the person we knew will always be in our memories just as we loved her.

Though my sense of loss is so profoundly deep and grief is still my tormentor it is on morinings like these that allow the snip-its of color of all that once was and all that can be seep back into my concious mind and soothe my pain.

It is on morinings like these that I inventory my life and the love that is still around me and realize that life goes on, life renews and that joy will survive.