If Winter Comes

Our area was experiencing weeks of rain—not what I sometimes call “liquid sunshine”—but the raw, cold kind that seeps into bones and affects attitudes. The groundhog hadn’t seen his shadow, but I was very skeptical about his prognostication of an early spring. Since I had errands to do, I couldn’t hibernate. Water from an eighteen wheeler sprayed onto my car windshield, and I slammed on my brakes muttering as the truck took a sharp right turn into a local nursery. Emblazoned on its side panel was a brilliant picture of Encore Azaleas—one of my favorite flowers and the inspiration in May 2012 of my first blog article “Life’s Encore.” The colorful azaleas painted on the truck reminded me that winter rains are necessary before spring can emerge and beautiful flowers bloom.

One of the advantages of being a senior adult is that you can develop perspective on your life. You can look back and recognize challenges you’ve experienced and how they were resolved. Some of the most significant events in my life occurred after bleak and long winters of my discontent. (“Now is the winter of our Discontent”-William Shakespeare, Richard III, 1594.) 

It was March 1965 when I first experienced deliverance from a winter of chronic depression and found joy and peace when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. My long, lonely winters of widowhood ended in March 1996 when I met and soon married my late bloomer husband, Charles. It was a beautiful spring day two years later when I received the call to go to Emory University hospital for my liver transplant. My eighteen year long winter of failing health soon became a spring of restored life.

Every year I gladly lose an hour of sleep when we change to Daylight Savings Time. Even though I suffer through the sneezing season and an abundance of southern pollen, spring remains my favorite time of year. The poet, Percy Shelley, said it best in Ode to the West Wind:  “If winter comes, can spring be far behind.”

All the nitty-gritty details of the winters, springs, and other seasons of my life are chronicled in my memoir, Born Three Times-A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love. Thank you to all of you who have read it and encouraged me with your positive comments. For those who still want to order an eBook or soft cover edition, click on the “How to Order” link above.