Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume 1, Issue 6
Lessons of the Seasons
March 20, 2006

Dear Reader,

I love the seasons. Living on the prairie ensures four distinct seasons per year, and I’ll take each of them. Especially this winter, which has been wonderfully mild here in South Dakota.

Each season of the prairie commands a simplicity that offers lessons we should take with us on this journey, wherever we may go.

1. Spring always follows winter. Even after a dark spell in life, there is new life just around the corner. Spring means baby animals—calves, lambs, deer and water fowl—wild flowers, new grasses and trees full of blossoms that promised fruit by summer’s end.

2. Fall always precedes winter. God gives us the beautiful colors of autumn, much like a quilt, to prepare for the cold, long days ahead. I believe it’s His way of saying He’ll keep us warm.

3. Summer produces what we plant in the spring: vegetables and flowers to delight both palette and eye. But if you don’t do the work in the spring, you don’t get the harvest of summer.

Mom died in the winter. It’s a bleak time of year to lose someone. On the South Dakota winter prairie, grass is brown. Leaves are gone. Days are short. Logically I knew spring would come, but the first spring following Mom’s death seemed a very long ways away.

As I look out at winter this year, I know spring will come. It might come roaring like a lion, or sleeping like a lamb. But it will come. It always does, on the prairie.

Just as spring always comes, so do the lessons of my mother. Like Mom, I, too, am a grandmother. I think of how Mom spent time with my daughters, playing, helping them make craft items, teaching them a few things in the kitchen.

Mom's time and effort richly blessed both of my daughters with a harvest of memories they still talk about today.

Now it's my turn.

I spent last week with my grandson. I had book signings and presentations on Dear Mom in Cheyenne, where Gavin lives. And, on Tuesday, I turned 50.

My birthday comes every spring….at least thus far! I know there’s no guarantee of another birthday, and combining that with losing Mom I have learned this lesson: life is a wonderful journey, and we’re blessed to be able to savor every lesson, every season, every birthday.

I was blessed to spend this one with my grandson, who calls me Gumma. It was perfect, because he is perfect.

We made things together, danced together and watched Madagascar. We talked, sang and cuddled. And thanks to his patience in walking into yet another book store last Friday to promote Dear Mom, I rewarded him with a pirate play set. We played pirate with a black scarf, eye patch and telescope. (Should I confess to firing the imaginary gun and enthusiastically proclaiming victory?!?!?)

The bounty of this harvest of memories is mine. My life is enriched every time I get to see Gavin. And in another six weeks, my life will get richer as my grandson becomes a big brother. Another season of life will begin, this one as precious as when I first became a grandmother.

The seasons of life are like those on the prairie. Wherever you live, I’m sure you have your own seasons and harvests of great memories. Some include your Mom with your children. Savor those. Share them. Tell the stories over and over, even if they involve pirates and imaginary guns.

Telling the stories one of the best parts of the journey.  I wouldn’t miss this trip and all of its lessons for anything.

Happy Spring!

Dee Dee