I've wanted to participate in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop ever since I found her blog. Every week she assigns several prompts and we are to choose one or all of them to respond to. There was something about this week's prompt about the coming of Spring that really spoke to me.
The prompt: Share some photos and stories about why you love Spring.
I had always been a Fall kind of girl. For me, I rejoiced in a small window of time beginning at the start of a new school year and ending at Halloween. I adored the way the sun glowed in the late September afternoon. Attending the annual Fall festival at the local Catholic church. And the vintage Halloween decor I had begun to collect as an adult. I had even dreamt of having a Fall baby so that I could plan a ghoulish-themed birthday party like the one I had seen in the movie "Hanging Up."
My love affair with the Fall ended in October 2008 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I had to forgo planning my daughter's first Halloween (she had been born earlier that Winter crushing my Fall baby dream) and instead get ready for eight rounds of dense dose chemotherapy.That Fall and the Winter that followed are a little hazy. I was sick. I was bald. I was miserable. In January I was working with one of the nurses planning out my new few appointments for treatment. The end was in sight - my last chemo would be April 2, 2009.
I sat at my desk filling in the dates on my calendar. I noticed the bare branches of our neighbor's birch tree that hang outside our office window. I'll never forget that day because I knew that once that tree had started to sprout new leaves that I would finally be done with treatment.
April 2nd arrived - and sure enough - so did the tiny, green leaves of the birch tree.
For me, Spring is the new Fall.