We had a couple mild days, rainy, but warm. This morning I pulled back the bedroom drapes to wave goodbye to DB, and it was SNOWING! Come on, now, we are looking for signs of spring.
One sign of spring in this neck of the woods is the maple trees being tapped. We will continue to get snow in the next few weeks, but it will melt fast. In New Hampshire, we call that "sugar snow". Along with the honeycombing dirty old snow piles, it means that spring isn't too far off.
When I cross the bridge over our lovely (frozen) lake, I can see the hills in the distance turning a soft magenta. This is an indication that the sap is rising. One of the characteristics of the beautiful NH scenery is that the small branches and twigs of the white birches turn magenta in late February. That lovely red, together with the white birch bark and the deep green of the pines, balsam, and hemlocks, makes for a very colorful landscape, even with snow on the ground.
We met Lyra and her husband in a town about half-way between us on Sunday and celebrated her birthday at lunch in a brewery/restaurant. I was finally able to give her the birthday present I bought her in Colombia. There is a story of why I wanted her to have that particular present.
When Lyra was in high school, we had an exchange student from Colombia. She was a bit difficult for me, as she wasn't used to having a woman in the household. Her own mother had died when she was around 10, and from that day on she more or less ran the roost.
She also wasn't used to having a sister, and often she would do rather selfish things that angered me, although Lyra mostly dealt with them. When Lyra visited this young woman in Colombia, she was able to see just why M. was selfish and self-absorbed: she was the queen of the family.
One of M.'s habits, that drove me nuts for some reason, was to chew on her real emerald ring. This emerald was a rock, beautiful, and too expensive to be used as a pacifier. It annoyed me no end. And when M. pulled a particularly unpleasant stunt on Lyra, I said to myself that someday Lyra would have an emerald to chew on. ( I didn't say I was mature about all this; just a mother tiger.)
Well, you guessed it. On our cruise, when we docked in Cartegena, Colombia, DB and I headed for the nearest emerald store and, yes, bought Lyra an emerald ring. Unfortunately, the stone isn't big enough to chew on (that rock of M.'s must have cost at least 5 figures), but it still gleams like the real emerald it is.
So, happy birthday again, daughter dear. I have now fulfilled a dream.
Sadly, M. died just a few years ago, too young, too tragically. She came to NYC to visit her cousin and Lyra went to stay with them for a weekend. Three days after Lyra returned home, M. died. I never got to see her after she left for home that year she lived with us. We settled our differences before she left, and I forgave her for the troubles she caused. But I never forgot that ring.
DB bought me the earrings that match that ring for my birthday. When I wear them, I remember the many, many good things and good times with M. Because we did have them, and it was because of her that we were willing to continue to take in exchange students.
Here's to memories of a brown-haired, dark-eyed girl and a blond-haired blue-eyed girl, giggling in Lyra's bedroom; here's to that same dark-eyed girl making her American brothers laugh; here's to the last conversation I had with her when, in spite of the language barrier, we were finally able to share "things of the heart".
And here's to emerald rings.
Life is good, even when complicated. Thanks be to God.
This has been a hard day: three meetings at church, and a very sore shoulder (the arm I broke). I don't know whether it is the weather, or I slept on it funny, or if it is a full-blown arthritis "episode".
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