Spring always comes with layers of trepidation and excitement and dread and hope. It’s been three years this May since our daughter, Mila, died. That, too, looms strong and deep in our hearts. Long before my brain is aware of it, my bones start to rattle and the antennae in my hair pick up the smells of awakening grasses and plumping tree buds. Stronger than a song or a scent is the feel of spring. This day felt like that day years ago now. The day I hugged my youngest born for the last time. It was a good hug, a long and lingering hug. We both had tears in our eyes when we said goodbye and I wonder now if those invisible antennae of ours already knew.
So spring comes now with the insistence of my awareness. I must be present to the waves of love and grief and grant myself grace. It’s too slippery a path, too easy to slip and be covered layers of memories and emotions and demands that can get all jumbled up into a mass so tangled it’s hard to unravel. No, much better to be here, there, in every moment. To accept what comes as it comes.
Here on the farm, it’s the great awakening with demands as saturating as the rains. Babies are being born. Food and trees must be planted. Things that were consumed by the winter, or kept stagnant by the cold, now need our attention. I can hear the revving of our motors as our days get longer and our short time to do all that must be done in these seasons of work call upon us.
This spring, my husband Troy, had a mysterious malady show up that rendered him unable to walk. Strange indeed. There was no injury to point to and no logical cause, but there it was all the same. He went from a sore knee to a large knee effusion with swollen leg and from hobbling about to needing crutches. He was in agony. I’m not used to seeing my big, strong man in agony. It was humbling for us both. A clever ER doctor tested him for Lyme and sure enough… So it’s been weeks and weeks of IV antibiotics and still, he struggles to simply walk.
What this has meant on a personal level is that his jobs have become my jobs. His chores, his tasks, his projects, all of his “when spring gets here I gotta’ get going on…” things either wait or must be done by me. But I have those things, too. The work is endless and there is no turning back. It truly is what it is. I’m tired. I’m tired and it’s barely May.
Inevitably, there’s a strain that surfaces in moments like these. He struggles with feelings of incompetence, of an unwarranted guilt as he watches my fatigue grow and his capabilities dwindle. I get that. I’ve been there myself when I was unwell all those years. But it’s tougher for a man, for my man. So much of him is in his power and capacity. I could find solace in nurturing and creating even when my physical body was weakened. It’s worse for him than it is for me. I remind myself of that often.
We sat down for supper together the other night and spoke about just this. His guilt, my exhaustion, the uncontrollable circumstance of this time. We’re both being challenged but the source of our problems aren’t each other. Sometimes, when these stressors arise it seems easy enough to lay blame on someone around you. Waters get muddied with impatience and fatigue and we look for something, or someone, to direct our frustrations on. I’m hyper-aware of this tendency in some people mostly