Blossoms: Forsythia along Route 1 is starting to show yellow. Purple hyacinths in Miss Jean's front yard.

Sprung

I was up late last night finishing the Kashani sample pages. To be honest, my late night was not altogether due to my Press assignment. I started prettying up this site a little yesterday, now that I've moved into my new digs, and then I decided it was time for the long overdue bio and cast pages. I like playing around with HTML, though I wish I had more of the artist's sensibility. I've seen some pages that are truly magnificent. I'm not sure I'll ever get there, but for now this simple design pleases me.

Spring has sprung. Winter could still hold a nasty surprise for us in the form of an April snowstorm, but there is a feeling of inevitability now about the approach of spring. We have turned the corner and are entering my favorite time of the year. Spring should really mark the beginning of the new year instead of January 1; the milder weather, the lengthening days, the cleansing winds, the emerging blossoms, and the return of the sun all hold the promise of new possibilities.

Strange that today of all days when I am thinking of spring, renewal, and rebirth that I find myself having to explain death to the boys. On the ride to pick up Tab this afternoon, Daniel reported that Bugsy, the rabbit in the pre-K room, died today.

"He was just lying there all day, and then Miss Carrie saw that he was dead," Daniel explained solemnly.

The twins asked what "dead" meant, and before I could answer, Daniel chimed in with, "Death is saying good-bye forever. That's what Babci said." Then followed a four-way conversation among us, in which I simultaneously tried to explain the physical facts of death to the twins--Bugsy looks like he's asleep but he won't wake up again--and the theological aspects to Daniel--the body is really just a shell and when we die our souls goes to the Kingdom of Heaven. "But how does our soul get to heaven?" asked the ever-practical Daniel. I guess he was expecting to hear about Star Wars-style space ships or special escalators or something.

As I reflect further it is not really strange, this linking of spring and death. Everything is born but to die, and out of that death comes new life. It is, after all, the true meaning of Easter: Christ's life and death and resurrection, which brought new life everlasting.

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