Oh How Lovely

Spring has snuck up in exactly the way I love.  Slowly.  Deliberately.  With quiet conversations, long hours in the windy sunshine, a splash of plum blossoms in the kitchen.

I love it all.  The birds.  The bare trees on the brink of green (or purple or white or pink).  

 

I love the inevitability.  Inevitability that avoids being routine because the symbolism is so deep.  Deeper with each passing year and each difficult life experience. 

       

We had our first spring picnic at the cemetery last week.  (If you call Cadbury eggs a picnic.  I do.)  Lucy read The Friend, I read The Ensign, Spencer ran around wielding sticks.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  The prophet's words were so powerful. 

“We laugh, we cry, we work, we play, we love, we live. And then we die."

But then we live again.  Because of the Savior.  "And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us [then], only it will be coupled with eternal glory." (D&C 130:2) 

And I'm glad for that.  Because I really love all this laughing, crying, working, playing, loving, living business.  I really love all the people who do those things with me.  

Lucy and Spencer and I spent the bulk of last Saturday in the backyard. I held Spencer for a long time on the swing set, but later, when he was busy with a little friend, I persuaded Lucy up onto my lap.  It's been years, probably, since I held that girl on a swing.  We laughed and laughed and talked and talked. 

"Which is your favorite season, Mom?"  she asked among a million other questions.  "That's always been a hard question for me to answer!"  I confessed.  We talked together, in simple terms, about the colorful, intentional beauty of fall - a reminder that there is beauty even in death, if we know the Creator's plan.  We talked about the cheerful, budding beauty of spring - a reminder of Christ's resurrection and our hope of redemption and immortality.  We decided together that we love living in a place where seasons come and go, filling our senses with gratitude for God, our Eternal Father, and for his Son, our Savior.  

MMMmmmmm.

I'm going to try to actually blog over the next couple of weeks.
So see you soon.
And h a p p y  s p r i n g.