Slow Spring Recovery

Sometimes things in life happen for which there are no ready answers.  The untimely death of a young person, either from despair or accident, is one of these.  During the last week, I have been thinking much about Veronica Boehm, who shared my first name and also, I have learned from your messages, shared my love of art and photography. In my walks with Poochini in the Heather Garden, the earth is reluctantly waking up from winter's coma.  Daffodils stand upright amidst blue crocuses and purple heather.  In the last two weeks, these daffodils have been twice dusted by unseasonable snow.  The wind blows off the Hudson, reminding me that recovery takes time.  It inches forward, takes a lunge backward, then hesitantly tries to move forward again. 

Thinking about Veronica Boehm has reminded me of my college boyfriend, who died aboard TWA flight 800, which was bound for Paris and which crashed in deep ocean just off Long Island.  Since then, I have been acquainted with other deaths:  a classmate who perished in a diving accident, the murder of a colleague, the sometimes sudden and, all too often, expected death of the hospital wards, and the death of my own father.  But the first experience of death can bring unexpected emotions.  There is first disbelief (there must be a mistake;  they've named the wrong person).  Then shock (this can't have happened, how could this have happened?)  There is grief (is my friend really gone?  I miss him/her.)  In the case of a violent death, closure comes with difficulty (for me, in the form of dreams, over years, in which my beloved returned, and I would awaken believing he had not truly died).  Then there is acceptance, which at the beginning does not seem possible, or even desirable.  Experiencing the emotions as they arise is natural.

Thinking these thoughts, I have not enjoyed the early spring as I normally do.  And that is natural, too.  This year's spring brings a slow recovery.  Lingering cold turns my thoughts inward.  Over time, I have stopped looking for rationality in my beloved's death.  I have simply accepted it.  These days, I think not about his death, but remember him in full youth, with a wide gap-toothed grin (he played hockey, and had a missing front tooth).  Nearly twenty years later, this memory still brings me joy.  That is the slowness of recovery.  Which is also only natural.