“February is a suitable month for dying. Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long.” – Anna Quindlan
Today is Family Day here in Ontario. And I’d been thinking about my family all day when I came across that quote. February is not an easy month for our family. February 1st would have been my nephew’s birthday. February 8th was the anniversary for his death. February 15th was the anniversary of my niece’s death due to SIDS. It’s also the month that, many years, ago I learned I was pregnant, only to have a miscarriage a few weeks later. I think about my nephew and the life he had been forging for himself. I wonder if he would now be married with kids of his own. I wonder what my niece would have been like as she grew up. Would she have been a girlie girl or a tomboy? And my own baby, what about him? (I was convinced he was a boy). Would he have been athletic like his dad or artsy like me?
No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. ~Proverb
Of course we have had 3 new additions to the family in the past 8 months and we’ll be welcoming my daughter’s fiancé into the family this May and another baby into the family in August. Although we never stop missing those who are no longer with us, the family carries on and celebrates their lives by continuing to grow, to love, and to have faith that they are still with us in spirit. Just as I know that the monotony of winter is soon to be replaced by the rebirth of spring, I also know that one day I will be with those loved ones again. And that, gives me hope.
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