When parents talk about having a child who is ill or struggling, nonparents often take the wrong message. They think, Thank God I was spared all that pain. If I can’t order up the precise specifications for my child, the condition in which he emerges, the choices he’ll make, if I can’t be assured that he’ll skirt the dangers that await him, maybe it’s better not to have children at all.
Those of us who know the airless terror of the 10 steps between the second you first glimpse your child’s surgeon through the glass doors and the moment he’s standing in front of you, delivering the verdict—we don’t think this way. Each time one of ours is ill or in pain, we think, Thank God I am here for him.
It’s the magnolias that I love — see any of those in bloom? One spring J&I went looking for spring about this time of year. We drove straight down to Savannah, GA before we saw them in bloom. After a few days we drove north until we saw them in new bloom, stayed…repeating the fully-loaded tree sighting all the way north.
After a month we returned to Canada where the buds were still not out! Suspect it will be different now with Climate Change moving everything up 2 weeks. 😀
Barbara – We did not see any magnolias in bloom, although we saw some tulip trees/bushes, which are very like the magnolia the squirrel deflowers, literally, in my backyard. Your chasing-Spring trip sounds wonderful.
The redbud trees are among the first to bloom, as I recall. These flowering crabs are delicious!
Laurna – The crabs were some consolation for the absence of the redbud this year. I guess they’re usually mid-to-late April in those parts, so we were a bit early. And the early trees got bit by a late frost. I’m working now on a next-year plan. 🙂