…Guest post by wellness advocate Lisa MacKenzie…

When I was a girl back in the 1960’s, spring was my favorite time of year.  My grandmother would pore over seed catalogs, begin spring-cleaning, and take me for walks in the woods to look for signs of spring.  Many weekend mornings we would walk to the Susquehanna River to fish, watch, and wait.  As my grandmother sat quietly on a log looking at the water, looking upward, and looking at me, I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for, but I knew that whatever it was it was important.  She would sigh, and I knew to be quiet. Like kindred spirits, she and I knew when to be still and when to talk to each other. I loved her.

As I grew, my grandmother became more fragile and my walks became solitary, but I found joy in running home to tell her that I had found the first lady slippers in the woods.  She would say, “It’s a new beginning, and you saw it my girl–you saw it.”  I didn’t know what she meant, but I loved her, and I knew it was important.

My grandmother and I hardly ever went to church, but on Good Friday when I was 15, we went to the little Episcopal Church in town where lots of people I knew attended.  It was raining and the church was damp and cold; we sang a sad song, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, and my grandmother cried.  We held each other’s hands, and I had a sense of what we were waiting for.  We walked home in the rain.

Years later, I remember these times together: we were watching for Love and waiting for a new beginning.  Now I know that you don’t have to wait for God’s Love, but sometimes you have to wait for yourself to understand that there’s nothing more important.

–Lisa MacKenzie

Images from flickr users Frank G Heron (top) and lars hammar (below), both via creative commons.