Spring’s eternal hope
Way back in 1733, Alexander Pope wrote an epic poem titled “An Essay on Man” to his friend Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in an effort to “vindicate the ways of God to man.”
It was a noble and lengthy attempt and is often quoted to this day. One of its most famous lines says, “Hope springs eternal in the human beast” and I have to say I agree with him most of the time, but most definitely of all in the spring.
Spring is wrought with reasons to feel hopeful. Romance, new plants, and babies of all kinds emerge as the days lengthen and the temperatures rise. The clocks spring forward and we find ourselves waking to the sun rising and birds singing rather than the darkness of winter mornings.
It is hard to feel anything but gleeful promise in the springtime, at least until one of those nasty storms comes rolling up.
Thunderstorms are what happen when warm, moist air meets cold, dry air, and the two often collide in springtime.
As I write, one storm after another is rumbling through and it is enough to put the fear of God in your heart. Terrible things are happening to the west of us, though the worst of it seems to settle by the time it reaches us. My dogs Hansel & Gretel, however, are certain that the house is going to collapse around us each time the thunder speaks.
I get it, I tell them, I’m pretty afraid of the possibilities, too. It is hard to feel hopeful when doom seems to loom on the horizon.
Whenever the weather gets a little scary I am reminded of the time that my momma nearly lost her mind in fear of a storm that came up quickly one spring afternoon many years ago.
The worst part of it for her, was that my sister wasn’t home from school yet. She had a dance practice and was to be dropped off by another mother and Mom couldn’t get anyone on the phone.
Mom was raised to fear storms, and it was de rigueur in our home that if there was the faintest rumble of thunder all appliances were unplugged and all windows were closed, and the sweaty wait commenced. We didn’t have air conditioning so there was nothing worse on a hot afternoon than to have to unplug all the fans and close off our only hope for moving air.
On this particular afternoon, the storm built fast and hard, seemingly out of nowhere, so that even I was a bit alarmed by it. The closer it got, the more Mom’s fear got the best of her. “You can’t imagine how terrified I was,” she told me when I asked her to recall the event.
Yes I could, I assured her, because I was right there with her, trying to figure out how to console the inconsolable. I was trying to be the strong one in my adolescent heart that really wasn’t sure how to pull that off.
I had to take a break just now after the emergency tornado warning alarm nearly made me jump out of my skin. Now, as I write, Hansel & Gretel and I are huddled in an internal closet. They are still concerned, but I think they are enjoying our tight quarters together.
On that day many years ago, Mom and I were left with no choice but to run to the earthbound wall of our basement and hope for the best. Hope is all you can do when all the other ideas have run out.
We huddled together and watched the storm arrive through the sliding glass doors on the opposite wall. They led out to a concrete patio in the backyard by which Mom had planted a weeping willow tree years before. Hail skipped and skittered off the patio for a bit, and then the winds came. We watched as the split trunk of that willow tree twisted and danced like lovers until the pure force of it all was too much to handle and the tree came crashing down onto the patio.
It was terrifying to watch, and all along all Mom could imagine was Jennifer, somewhere out there, twisting about like Dorothy’s worst nightmare.
Just as quickly as the storm had begun, it ended. We went out in the yard and found that we also lost a young peach tree that hadn’t yet reached its full potential. I guess it was doomed from the start.
Mom remembers standing in the back yard in water up to her ankles, the only time water stood in that yard, that she can recall.
When Jennifer finally arrived home she didn’t even know there had been a storm, but we later learned that a tornado had passed through above the neighborhood, never touching down to wreak any significant havoc, but taking out a good number of trees in its path.
Isn’t that just the way things go? For about twenty minutes, my mom and I were more scared than we had ever been, and yet Jennifer didn’t even know a storm had happened.
As I sit here in the closet with dogs shivering next to me, I can only hope that the tornadic cell that is reportedly headed our way will miss us. But, as Abraham Lincoln once said, this too, shall pass.
Hope comes in different forms, and spring is right on track to shower us with all kinds. Hope in the face of fear is born of strength, and hope in the face of promise is born of gratitude.
Here’s hoping that our spring days are filled with more hope for the bountiful blooming, and less of the hope for the storms to pass safely. But, as Pope wrote, hope springs eternal in the human beast, so let’s hold to that no matter what.