It was a day when the world seemed to be coming alive after a long and troubled slumber, when the trickles of melting snow were wending in rivulets through the streets.

It hadn’t been an easy start. Late, hard snow had withered flowers before they’d been able to bloom, and the yard was grey with sprouts that had come too early. But standing there, under the clear sky and in the warm sun, it was possible to believe that the worst was over, that no withering days lay ahead.

The cautious optimism of a late spring after an early thaw, something this warming world delivers all the more often. Even with all that is happening, the many storm clouds that linger in the mind even on a clear day, a portent of hope. Hope written in buds, trilled in birdsong, tracked on nimble feet through the woods that still remain.

The world was showing its aliveness on the day you died. And that is for the best.

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