Beginnings
& Endings
Spring is
exploding this week. Two weeks ago, as I
hunted turkeys I wore long underwear and gloves because each morning started at
about twenty degrees. This week we had
some sunshine and summer-like temperatures.
All of the tree buds that had barely swelled until this point, suddenly plumped
up and they are in the process of bursting open.
Leaves are
amazing. They unfurl like miniature
flags, each of them fully shaped and immediately recognizable. The sawtooth edges of the birch, and the
calligraphy-like edge of the oak emerge from the bud. It will only take them from a few days to no
more than a week to stretch out to full sized.
By next weekend trees will be spreading out blankets of thick, cool
shade beneath them on sunny days.
Some, like
flowering crab trees in my front yard, and the lilac out my kitchen window are
like those fourth of July fireworks that hide a second internal explosion. Their leaves are still unfolding and growing,
but the flower buds are also clearly emerging.
They appear most anxious to get this growing season underway.
While all
this has been staging and now engaging, my wife has been contracting in a
way. She will be retiring from teaching
after twenty- plus years. So, each day
she brings home some materials that she has used for the last time. Sometimes, it’s markers and colored
construction paper that will be now be divided up among grandchildren. Sometimes it’s books that will get donated at
some point. At the time of year when
everything is growing and becoming larger, her classroom in a way gets smaller
and smaller.
There are
those she knows who only see the burden of daily work being lessened. “Are you getting excited?” they ask
enthusiastically? As someone who has
watched her spend some of every evening, sometimes most of the evening doing
all of the reading and correcting and prepping and planning that is necessary
to teach well, I know that I am happy that she will have more down time.
But I have
some inkling as to the amount of her heart that she has invested into hoping to
see the spark of learning, the light of understanding, the fire of imagination
in the eyes of her students. I know that
she has never seen this as her job. She
sees it as her vocation, her ministry.
And so, I see the quiet when the realization of the nearness of the end
overshadows her. I see the eyes staring
out into a future that suddenly seems so unknown. There is nothing that I can do about this
ending except to assure her that I will accompany her. I will be there for a hug when needed, and I
will be patient when it is space rather than closeness that she will need. I will share her smile when she is finally confident
that she has brought everything with her that is necessary, and that she is
confident in what she has left behind.
His Peace,
Deacon Dan
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