Signs of hope

Today we got a preview of spring, with temperatures rising to 70 degrees, right on the heels of one of the coldest Februarys in Ohio history, according to the meteorologists.

But, this being Ohio, the 70 degrees is just a tease to let us know what we won't be getting because by tomorrow the temperatures will have plummeted to 40 degrees and the rain (to be mixed with ice) will remind us that winter isn't done with us.

With that in mind, I decided to record the unarguable signs of spring that are sprouting everywhere and which my husband had pointed out to me yesterday. Armed with my trusty little digital camera, I went out into the garden and snapped a few photos that speak for themselves.

One depicts the tiniest (about the size of the top of my little finger) starts of our glorious tulips, and the other captures the misnomered snowdrops, which are among the very first, if ephemeral, harbingers of spring.

With all that verde que te quiero verde in them, I can't agree that the snowdrops resemble drops of snow. To me they look more like the tiniest of white-frosted light bulbs, waiting for the sun to turn them fully on so they can dazzle us even if just for a few days.

March is one of my favorite months. Not only did we move into this beautiful house four years ago on this very month, but the life-saving surgery that gave me a second chance at life (this same second chance that I'm milking for everything it's got) also happened one March six years ago.

I remember that we scheduled the surgery for Holy Week, so my parents could fly up from Puerto Rico, and that it happened shortly before Easter Sunday. That day, although we didn't expect to see the surgeon, he showed up, all dressed up in an expensive olive-green silk suit, ready to celebrate Easter Sunday with his family. But first he stopped at the hospital to see his patients, including me. My parents, my husband and I were all impressed that he'd taken the trouble. After all, it's not like I was going anywhere anytime soon.

When I first met him, the surgeon had promised that the procedure would change my life for the better. Back then, jaded by years of pain and disappointment, I didn't believe him. But he was absolutely right. To me, the surgery proved that while I had been through my own kind of crucifixion, I also had a chance at resurrection.

Like those snowdrops and those tulips, I too, improbably sprouted once more from what was seemingly dead. Because March has tended to be a month of that type of change, that's what this month symbolizes for me: the invincible hope of rebirth.