life in technicolor : part 2

i decided today on my drive to work that i was a bit hasty in titling my last blog post. why would i waste such a great song on a work story??

anyway.

i don't usually drive to work, but i have had to drive several times this week due to my ridiculous volunteer event schedule. and may i say, if you have to drive in city traffic in the morning, do it in the spring. lakeshore drive and grant park are bursting with spring blooms and plush green grass and fluffy, reach-out-and-touch-me tulips.

and it's the tulips that make my breath catch in my throat.

mom usually came into the city for a visit a few times a year when she was well. about three springs ago, she came downtown with me to see The Bean, explore the new millenium park, and humor me as i tried to take artistic photos of apple blossoms and vast spans of multi-colored tulips with my (still film!) SLR camera. we took silly pictures together in the shiny metal of Cloudgate. we were smiling and giggling.

mom loved the tulips. their beds line lakeshore in huge quilts of red, yellow and orange. thousands and thousands of them. she appreciated that chicago took such time and money to plant them in such ridiculous quantity. she lamented that there were no "good spots" in our yard to plant big tulip blankets.

i thought of her, of course, and wished that i could talk with her about how incredibly beautiful my commute was this morning. everything reminds me of her lately. i think i hear her voice in the callers on the silly morning radio shows. i see women wearing cardigans like the ones she wore over her scrubs.

and i shiver when i remember that it has been almost one whole year since she died.

i think about what i was doing this time last year. i was in rockford, working on a remote work laptop from the hospital. waiting to see what would happen next. when she would be stable enough for us to take her home with hospice. calling people, calling lawyers and cancer society reps and banks and hospice care workers. yelling at nurses. asking people to pray the prayers i couldn't pray any more. walking with our family dog angus around the yard, looking for violets to bring to her bedside table.

a year is such a long time and no time at all.

it is spring again. hope this year, instead of dread. but still. little prickles of sadness dance around in the breeze, and shake the tulip petals in the grass.