When Spring Comes...

It has been a long, cold winter and I've clung to the promise of Spring like a savior.

When Spring comes, I will feel better in my bones.
When Spring comes, I will feel my heart lighten.
When Spring comes, I will be happy and more patient and care for myself...
When Spring comes.

This place is familiar to me. I've been here many, many times. Times when my Spring was food. Or no food. It was God. And self help books. My spring was "love." It was a downed bottle of pills. Or hospitalization after hospitalization. Therapist after therapist. My Spring was alcohol. Care taking... of everyone but me.

I've suffered a thousand Springs.

During these long, recent Winter days, the weight of my burdens was heavy. Diapers and homework and marriage and real estate. Housework and arthritic pain and grief and hope and writing and not. Endless patience and excessive worry and packing lunches and chasing a toddler and getting out of my pajamas... or not. 

Both big and small things which, on top of each other, became seemingly insurmountable and threatened to crush my spirit. Spring was too far away to even envision. So I stayed inside. It was clear - this winter would last forever.

Here I was again making the same foolish mistake of my youth. Who am I to expect the next anything to make things different? What if I stayed inside waiting for my spring to come to me... and it never came? Then what?

Then what.

The days of "quick fixes" and self punishment and longing are years behind me. The problems of my youth seem small compared to the grief for the children I once held under my heart. I rise each day embracing the constant battle between joy and pain, anger and forgiveness, singing birds and buzzing alarms.

No matter where we are in life - it's always the same. We must experience Winter before we can experience a Spring. We shed parts of ourselves that we don't like... we leave behind behaviors that don't work for us (or those around us) anymore... and we start again. Our blooming can look like a first step or the next step or standing still with our face to the sun.

I am coming out of my winter - a winter of great discontent - feeling grateful. I was in that uncomfortable spot between no longer and not yet... between promise and fulfillment... and I forgot one thing. I was put in that spot for a reason. There was a lesson to be learned. There were choices to be made that were mine. Only mine. 

Each day, I rise and thank God that the children I mourn are safe - and happy - and everywhere I am, every day. I thank Him that I knew they were never mine to begin with and I learned as much as I could from them while they were here. I thank Him for all I'm learning from Brian and Hope... and from a husband who teaches me every day that it's okay to be me. And I thank Him because I know - deep in my soul - that this life is just one big journey in a self-led classroom on our way back home. 

Sometimes I get lost. But then I find myself again.

The sun shines brighter through our bedroom window these mornings. The birds sing "Spring is coming!"... and I believe them.

Spring will come - for all of us - if we just ask.

Easter Time!...

The Bunny Came!

And God showed up, too!

It was a happy day at the Leong house.

Come on in....

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 The boys came down this morning to Easter baskets filled with toys and books.

Gavin received a cool toy that has a light up show when he presses a bar on the bottom.

And the Easter Bunny knew how much he LOVES the Fisher Price "Laugh and Learn" lady's voice and songs - and gave him a cell phone and a rolling puppy!  He was in Heaven.

Brian was more than happy to help his brother crack open his eggs.  Inside were coins for Gavin's piggy bank!!  The three of us raced up to Gavin's room to put the money in his bank.

Brian was excited with the toys in his basket...a helicopter, a telescope, Spider Man stickers and a sticker book.  But he was even MORE excited with the eggs in his basket that contained a few M&M's and Lifesavers!

Gavin wasn't interested in the scavenger hunt so Brian, being the great big brother he is, collected all the eggs in the playroom for both of them.

Inside each of the 20 eggs was one coin!  Brian was over the Easter Moon.

Yesterday, the boys got Easter gifts from Miss Sara and her parents that were - as usual - amazing and creative.  Brian got a pop up castle which has replaced our fort in the "book nook!"

A few days before Easter, a box arrived from our friend "Miss Barb" who often sends the boys books for their library.  A few of the books that she passed along I actually slipped into the boys Easter Basket stash.  One of which was called "Where Does God Live?" by Holly Bea.  

Once I read through this book alone, I knew it had a special place in Brian's basket.  All morning the three of us read books together - and Brian asked for this book twice.  We often casually talk about God and Heaven and angels together - especially at night.  Each night at bedtime he asks, "Want to lay on my bed for a little bit and look up at my stars, Mommy?"  And we do.  We lay on our backs...hold hands...and look up at the glowing stars on his ceiling. He tells me where everyone lives as he points up to the sky.  "Pop lives in that star... and Darcy is in that star..."

After reading the book one final time, I brought the boys upstairs for a short nap.  As I tucked Brian in he said, "Mama - is God dead like Pop?"  I quizzically replied, "Why do you ask that, Brian?"  He answered, "In the book it said that God lives in Heaven and you go to Heaven when you're dead."

What a perfect day to explain to my son how very alive his God is.  And how he lives everywhere... and in everything... and in everyone.

Happy Easter!!

p.s.... if you entered the Mattel "Save The Bunny" drawing, check this list to see if you're a winner!  I assume they would contact you - they didn't even tell me the winners were announced.  I have no idea who the winners are on the Chasing Rainbows Facebook Page giveaway - I haven't been told yet.  It was a rather anti-climactic ending... oh well.

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Entry #10444Natasha

Entry #10479Erica C.

Entry #1411Debbie T.

Entry #8964Maureen L.

Entry #4352Krista g.

Entry #372Patti M.

Entry #8911Darwin C.

Entry #11597Jessica S.

Entry #5990Ava P.

Entry #8829Aimée R.

Entry #8622Michelle H.