Spring - A Season of Change Spring is definitely in the air and there are new signs of life all around. The Dogwood trees have never been more beautiful than they are this year. The Cherry trees in Washington DC are about to make the promenade between historical monuments seem like a fairy land. The world seems at peace with itself. Spring is even more vibrant than Autumn. The bright colors of spring make one think of new life and things growing. The greens of the leaves and the grasses sprouting from once dead limbs and brown earth are growing towards the light from the inner darkness of winter. The warm, dry womb of the earth and the warmth of the tree trunk filled with sap. The air seems full of energy and life. I try to remember these things and all the beauty because this Spring is a very sad time for me. I lost my Mother on March 10, 2006. She was eighty eight years old and had been very sick for a long time. It still does not lessen the pain of her loss. She loved all kinds of flowers. She loved to plant them in the rich loam. She loved to nurture them and watch them grow. She had a gift, a green thumb. She could do the same with vegetables. Her tomatoes were large, red, and juicy. She also liked to plant the yellow ones that had less acid and they were better than any you would find in any grocery store or farmers market. If she did not plant a garden she planted tomatoes by the side of the house because she loved them so much. It is amazing how many tomato plants you can plant along side a house. You can also put in some cucumber vines and a few green bean vines. They will grow upwards and make the space look beautiful. We had a garden most of the time when I was a child. We did not have much in material things but we ate better than most in the Summer and Winter because many items were canned and stored for the leaner months. In olden times a person might call it a larder or a potato cellar. These areas were cool and kept things like potatoes and apples from rotting during the icy cold winters. I can romanticise those times now. It was a difficult life and not many would like to go back to it but I think Spring must have been even more beautiful to them in the early twentieth century.