My Awareness Calendar reminds me that April, among other things, contains the Awareness Observances of Adopt a Greyhound Month, Global Volunteer Month, Library Snapshot Month, National Pet Month, and Couple Appreciation Month. This is just a few from a field of 100 plus observances currently on record!
But for the purposes of this column, I will also add that the month of April also presents Bereaved Spouses Awareness Month, a time to, raise awareness for those who’ve lost a spouse, special person or life partner due to any number of circumstances and an opportunity to remind the “unintiated” that the “forward going” process will look diffirent for each griever and should be respected.
As April often contains at least part of the Easter Season and heralds new beginnings and potential for renewal, and family traditions, it can be a time of mixed-emotions; sorrow intertwined with hopeful imaginings of past and future. Holidays can still be very difficult for me, personally.
Recently, I’ve been graced with beautiful images of Easter gatherings held at my late sister’s gracious home that she painstakingly decorated for each holiday season.
For Easter, bunny figurines, pots of tulips and branches of forsythia displayed in the windows of her rambling gracious home built in the mid-1920s. She’d even plan a signature holiday adult beverage topped with a peep.
That house, located in our hometown of Hackensack, NJ, became the meeting place for my entire family, a place where so many memories were made. Her husband, David, sold it not long after her passing and I’m grateful for the years we enjoyed our time there.
After my mom’s passing a year ago, I sold a rental property in Hackensack to its tenants who were very happy to call that house home and now, I’m beginning the listing process for the last property owned by my parents. With each “letting go” I feel a deeper separation from my past, a process filled with up and down emotion. After Rich passed, I’d thought of returning north, but I knew life in the South was easier and less expensive; I’d get more for my money and could spend what I saved visiting and renting places if I wanted to return for a brief time.
I’ve grown to appreciate the beauty and naturalness of this cabin property on the lake in the northeast region of Florida. There are so many places to visit; ocean, springs, and lakes. Spring has its own qualities here – the White Cypress greens up, and the live oak sport new bursts of leaves having shed the old in February and March. Work on a small canal-front property has also proven to be a positive event for growing forward.
And our newest acquisition, Winn-ie the pup I met in the parking lot of our local grocery store has gained 3 lbs. in 3 weeks and is a live-wire and rumbles roughly with our big rescue dog Jackson adopted on Valentine’s Day of last year from the local shelter. The vet is undecided if she truly has Doberman or Rottweiler in her lineage. Her size will depend on her mix. Maybe she will skew on the smaller possibilty of Chihuahua, Miniature Pinscher or Dachshund, a mixed breed, Cheweenie or Doxipin, perhaps. Her little legs get longer each day, and she can wrestle like a pro, but she is a snuggle bunny and a lap lover and she and Jackie are inseperable.
I’ve often written that when the time is right (write) so is the dog, meaning I believe they are sent to us at certain times to give us what we need. What that is exactly, I’m still trying to figure out in this sleep-deprived puppy-raising stage. Speaking of writing, after receiving some heart-warming and encouraging notes from a developmental editor, I’m moving forward on that front, also, with a new energy.
Have a lovely Easter and spring celebration and may the warmer and lighter days ahead bring you Forward Motion no matter what form that takes. Do your best with what you have in the moment.
