First Day of Spring?

When I go out to my mother's cottage once a week I try to set up some good foods and things to do. I know I won't always be able to hang out like I do right now with her. However I am glad to see her and check up with how her physical therapies are going or how she is feeling. I have seen all kinds of moods and heard all kinds of thoughts she has had in the last winter months. So yesterday when it as snowing I was confusingly thinking "Isn't this the FIRST day of SPRING???" My childhood farm was covered in white fluffy snow and the mist of snow flakes made it miserable to even walk outside. I did make my teenaged brothers smile when I greeted them with a MERRY CHRISTMAS! Instead of a GOOD MORNING. I like the morning time when we all sit around the kitchen table as I cook eggs and bacon. (If only there was french press of coffee then it would almost be a perfect meal.) It was a cozy good time to get their sweet old dog Chanel to lay on my sweater inside the cottage door resting and happily watching me  in the kitchen. I baked some peanut butter cookies and setup the dinner meal. I like leaving in the evening knowing they had something cooked and ready for dinner. While I knitted and my mother napped, I sat thinking of how worn out I am feeling and how cold it was outside. This isn't the first day of spring to me at all, It has been fun watching Mom's cottage take on a home like feel as every week they bring over more furniture or books. The other house is also changing becoming more like storage. I am glad their dog is welcomed over there at night, I know they might not always listen to me when I advise how to care for their dog, but when I am there I can check in on her just like caring for my mother...Everyone else would like to just care for themselves. In understanding this I have grown and changed myself, I have a deep motherly heart and I also have a long list of things to teach or hope my teenaged brothers would do. Now after all my struggles and self  awareness these past few months in how I can't really be so mothering without annoying or smothering these teenaged boys who seem to enjoy taking care of our mother. I am glad to just pet that old sweet dog and visit with my mother in my full day there. 

Mom sat in her wheel chair drinking her hot water and eating breakfast as I continued to cook the eggs for the boys yesterday morning as the snow blew all around outside. "I had such a fun weekend helping Tiffany out at the Renascence fair for kids." My Mom looked surprise "I always thought you would of had life long friends like her, Jen and Rebekah." I chuckled explaining "WELL I do, I mean we are...It is easy to take time away from friends when life like kids or a job takes over, but we have never stop being friends, so you guessed right." Mom sighed "I mean that you girls would have families TOGETHER and never stop hanging out." I smiled thoughtfully explaining "We do have families together, I am going to share my dogs with Tiff's kids sometimes and we watch out for each other. And I never have stopped hanging out with any of them, I love being around and meeting up if they ask me soooooo for my part we are always going to be friends, what was magical is seeing how we have grown up and changed, how we have this new respect towards each other for that important part in our young life we all shared back then." My mom was quiet for moment then said "I am referring to you girls staying together in the same church." I smiled already knowing this in my reply "I know." Mom looked annoyingly around the room as I stopped cooking the eggs to bring my mother back from her aggression. I sat so she could see me as I smiled cheerfully saying "It's magical how much I have changed too, because now I respect people from all faiths, from all kinds of churches if that is their thing. Having that kind of respect helps never to close the door on a friendship so I think of it like I never went without friends just spent time away from each other and when we come back together we are better even more kind to one another." Mom nodded and said she is amazed how her friends come to visit her and how she wouldn't have thought they would ever do that. I went back to finishing my cooking thinking to myself in this first day of spring I was right where I was meant to be even if its not always easy......