March 14, 2016 at 5:36 p.m.

Rain helps world awaken from its nap

As I See It

By Diana Dolecki-

I love rain. I love it even more since I don’t have to be out in it.
As I stood at the window watching the rain softly falling, I could almost see the spring bulbs pushing their leaves closer and closer to the sun. Bits of sunshine and rainbows settled on the muddy ground. We call them crocuses but they are really sunshine and rainbows we can touch. Sunny yellow winter aconite appears among the remains of last year’s weeds. Fragile snowdrops cluster at the border between the lawn and an overgrown flower bed. It is March in Indiana.
Grandson, Jacob, turns seven this week. It seems like only yesterday that he was a toddler. I have a train set and a dinosaur book for him if I can figure out how to wrap them. I still have to gather all the shards of the flowerpots he shattered while he was here for Mom’s funeral. I don’t want to throw them away because I use them in the bottom of the flowerpots that escaped his boyishness. Plus, they remind me that he was here not that long ago.
His birthday is the day after St. Patrick’s Day. I still remember when Mom and Harvey were in the early days of their marriage. My brothers were little and life was good. Harvey would come home after a long, hard, day’s work and wash up at the pump outside the little house. Then he would come in and dance Mom around the kitchen. They did this every St. Patrick’s Day, and sometimes on other days. Their laughter still rings in my memory.
I wonder if they will dance on St. Patrick’s Day this year since they have both gone on to the afterlife. It is a mystery.
The rain is still softly falling. There are even more spring bulbs pushing leaves up through the mud. I am anxious to see how many of the things I planted last year have survived the winter. I don’t worry that another spate of cold will harm them. They are designed to survive late frosts. It always amazes me how hardy plants are. They look so fragile, yet manage to thrive despite rough weather.
I stop myself from picking up the phone to call my mother to see if her flowers are coming up. It will be a long time before that urge to talk to her fades away.
The rain has helped the irises settle in. I moved them from the front of her house to mine even though it wasn’t the ideal time to transplant them. I chose a fraction of them to take with the rationalization that they needed to be divided. Now they share the same space with the ones my late mother-in-law gave me years ago.
I also relocated some succulents known as hens and chickens. These are in a set of pots I took from her place. She had been trying for year and years to get me to take some hens and chickens home. She finally got her wish.
The water falling out of the sky and the warming weather have awakened more than the flowers. The grass is turning from drab winter brown to vibrant spring green. The trees and shrubs are starting to develop buds. The pussy willow has soft catkins just waiting to be petted. The world is awakening from its winter’s nap.
As I watch the rain, I feel an urge to relinquish the lethargy of winter. Life has changed drastically in the last few months. I must find a way to fill the hole in my heart from Mom’s passing. The rain is slowly washing away the bad things and replacing them with sunny blossoms.
After the rain comes the rainbow. And as everyone knows, a rainbow is a promise of hope. But there can be no rainbow without rain.
I love rain.
PORTLAND WEATHER

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