A wave of melancholy washed over me, despite the beautiful summer evening, as I relaxed on the dock with my nearly grown girls on the eve of my fifty-second birthday. I hated the idea of celebrating my birthday without Mom. Many “firsts” following the death of a loved one create peaks in the ebb and flow of our grief. This one felt especially poignant. There would be no “Happy Birthday” wishes from her the following day. What would my birthday feel like without her?

Unwilling to allow the all-to-familiar blues to take hold, I meandered off the dock, leaving my girls to their fishing. I’d let writing distract me. As a new author, I was blogging weekly to improve my skills and attract new readers. Months earlier, I’d scheduled out my blog concepts, deciding the prompt for my birthday week would be “Gift of Night Waves,” the title to a pivotal chapter in my first novel. In the book, my protagonist stumbles upon a priceless gift as ocean waves lap at her feet.

Standing on the shale shores of a murky reservoir in the middle of the country might not yield the same level of inspiration, but birds were twittering their night song, and a soft breeze caressed my face, smelling of fresh-cut grass with an undercurrent of fish. I needed to open my mind to ideas for a post to match my blog title.

Stepping carefully on the shifting shale, I scanned the shoreline. Tiny bubbles popped to the surface mere inches from my toes, and the darting shadows of minnows hinted at a hidden world below. Something bobbed nearby. I paused, bending over to investigate.

At first, I thought it was a flat piece of driftwood, but the shape wasn’t quite right. Curious, I picked it up. As I turned the item over, my mind flashed back to another July evening, three years earlier.
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​We’d just returned from our maiden voyage in new kayaks. I wasn’t yet accustomed to getting in and out of the torpedo-shaped craft, and capsizing was a legitimate concern. Two yards from shore, I plunged one flip-flop-clad foot into the water to avoid scraping my new boat along the sharp shale bottom. Slimy muck enveloped my foot and encircled my ankle. I clumsily swung my other foot over and out, placing it more carefully on the slick surface below, intent on keeping my shorts dry.

I stepped toward shore; my left foot rendered bare as I pulled it from the sucking sludge, my shoe still buried. Unconcerned, I safely stowed my kayak, then turned back to retrieve my sandal, hopeful I’d be able to wash the clinging mud off my favorite shoes.

Returning to the exact spot, or so I thought, I probed first with my toes, then with my fingers, refusing to consider what else might be trapped in the quagmire below. My actions did little more than cloud the water with sediment, rendering my eyes useless in the search.

A flip-flop couldn’t just disappear. It had to be there. But where? As the sun dipped below the horizon, I admitted to temporary defeat. Waiting until morning would allow the disturbed lake bottom to settle. Hopefully the shoe would be revealed in the bright light of day.

The following morning, clear water and sparkling sun revealed nothing. Had my buoyant little shoe floated away on the waves? I refused to believe it.

Searching for my lost shoe became a family affair, but not even the twenty-dollar reward offered to the kids would be enough to discover my shoe’s hidey-hole. Mom would shake her head over the ridiculousness of my silly reward, finding my obsession over finding my cheap, missing shoe absurd.

Too soon, autumn chased summer away. While winterizing the cabin, I considered tossing my single remaining flip-flop. But I refused to give up on my quest.

Eventually, the lone sandal fell to the bottom of the shoe basket full of castoffs. Someone would occasionally joke about searching our bay for my missing shoe when they needed spending money, but there was likely nothing left to find.

 “Mom, what’s that?”

My mind ripped back to the present. The aqua, pink and white striped straps and the cork-like bottom of the dripping shoe in my hand matched my now infamous missing flip-flop. There was only one logical explanation.

“Did you two put this in here?” I accused, rounding on my daughters, cold water trickling down my arm as I held my discovery high in the air. I could read the confusion on their faces. If they were trying to trick me by planting my one remaining flip-flop down here, they were doing a masterful job of masking their scheme. Unable to accept that I might be holding the missing flip-flop, my mind jumped instead to my husband. Or our son. Who was trying to trick me?

Spinning, I half-ran, half-slipped up the shale embankment toward our cabin with my find. The quickest way to prove my theory was to confirm the sandal I’d kept was no longer in the basket. Dropping my muck-covered discovery on the patio, I hurried inside.

I tossed the collection of shoes onto the kitchen floor in my haste to disprove what I was starting to consider, …and there it was…waiting patiently for me at the wicker bottom of the basket.

​No one had tried to trick me by stashing a flip-flop along the shoreline.
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​I headed back to the patio with the clean shoe, struggling to comprehend the likelihood of a ten-dollar sandal staying in one piece for three years, stuck deep in the mud of a bay that freezes hard every winter, where waves pound and water levels fluctuate. Yanking out a length of garden hose, I rinsed the clinging mud from my discovery. A metal grommet bore heavy corrosion, but beyond that, the shoe still looked nearly identical to its mate.

When I skipped back down to the water’s edge with my reunited shoes, the girls' dubious expressions revealed little elation over my find. The possibility of the twenty-dollar reward had evaporated.

​Pondering what had just transpired, I reclaimed my spot on the dock and felt a sense of contentment flow through me. The night’s waves had delivered unapparelled inspiration for my blog post, although capturing the scope of the experience felt daunting. Logic defied the sequence of the evening’s events (the shoe surviving harsh elements for so long, my being in the exact right place, at the perfect time, before my miraculously freed flip-flop could float away.)

My eyes traveled over the clouds dotting the horizon above the surface of our lake, and I accepted that logic didn’t belong in this story. I believe the flip-flop was symbolic, a sign sent from my mom, giving me the most precious of gifts for my birthday: a reminder to never give up, despite how daunting things may feel, and never to forget that she’s still watching over me, celebrating life.  

It's been three years since I found my missing flip-flop. I decided to keep the reunited pair in a shadow box in my home office as a constant reminder that mystery and inspiration always surround us. And Mom is still cheering me on!

Allow yourself to be amazed by the gift of the unexplainable,     Kim

As I sit down to write on this sunny Sunday morning, I’m again convinced that springtime is the ultimate reminder of the beauty in this world. I’d planned to get back to working on my latest novel, but the breathtaking scene outside my front window demands something different.

Spring flowers are bursting forth with wild abandon, untouched and unaided by human hands. We’ve survived a long, dark winter; a stretch of time shadowed by more than dreary weather. I’m enjoying the glorious riot of pink on the tree outside. Yes, I’m a “pink girl.” I grew up wanting to live in a pink house. It doesn’t get much more dedicated to a color than that!
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We’ve lived in our house for twenty-eight years (give or take). We had no children when we moved in, but there were bedrooms to fill and a school nearby. Within the first year of living here, we had a new puppy and a baby on the way. That “baby” is now twenty-seven and living next door with his wife in their own house.

But we didn’t stop at one. When our son turned three, our first daughter arrived, followed by another little girl to round out our family of five.

The blooming of the pink crabapple tree always brings back special memories. Ever since the kids arrived, I’ve earned groans every spring when I insist we stand underneath the glorious branches laden with millions of pink blossoms for pictures. Depending on schedules and life stages, the various photos include poses with one, two, or all three of the kids. 
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There are also special snapshots that include extended family.
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I’m so thankful they all humor me with these annual photo sessions. When I look back through boxes of old pictures plus all the ones on my phone and in the computer, I sometimes wonder what I’ll ever do with so many pictures taken around one blossoming tree.

Should I delete some of the photographs? After all, most are hardly portrait quality masterpieces! There are shots with eyes closed against a glaring sun, heads turned at distractions, and a few inevitable squabbles as we crowded together. I bet that if I gathered one hundred of my pink tree pictures (it wouldn’t be hard, there are so many), most are perhaps “flawed” if I look at them with a critical eye.
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But I won’t delete any of them. After all, they are snippets of what actual life is like. The photos are a grouping of everyday moments. Moments that, while we were living them, seemed commonplace, and making time to take the pictures almost felt like a burden even. After all, the blossoms only last for a few days, and if a storm rolls through, they’ll be gone in a matter of hours. I never wanted to miss taking pictures in front of the tree when it was in its annual state of glory.

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The tree has a reliable cycle. Quiet and sleepy through the long winters, followed by a slow awakening. If you think to check, you’ll see tiny, tight buds forming, wine-colored and barely noticeable. You can never be sure exactly when they’ll burst open, taking on an almost fluffy appearance of beautiful color. The intense pink takes my breath away.

Right now, as I sit here appreciating the tree’s beauty, a solitary blossom dances slowly to the ground, caught on a puff of air, before landing softly on the bright green grass below. It’s a poignant reminder to enjoy this glorious sight now, before it’s too late.
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It won’t be long before the petals fade. They’ll litter the grass and driveway below like huge snowflakes, but the warmed air finally makes snow improbable. The spring breeze will quickly carry them away, or the lawnmower will shred them as summer approaches.

But my pink tree will keep producing even after its blooms fade. Dark green leaves will remain, along with a heavy crop of tiny little apples. Eventually, there will be a noticeable increase in the sporadic thumps against our bay window after twittering birds partake of the fermenting fruit. Poor little things!

Eventually, the fruit will fall to the ground, messier than the petals of early spring. Daily sweeping of the driveway won’t be enough to prevent the staining of the concrete. Vehicle tires will pulverize the tree’s bounty. The toddlers that posed under that very tree with me through the years, their little hands thrown up over their eyes to block the shining son, now drive cars that will run over the tiny apples.

Where have the years gone?
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Eventually, the heat of summer will fade to the crisp, cool nights of autumn. More apples will fall, frustrating my husband with the mess. But the only way that tree is leaving here is when it (or me) dies a natural death.

The weight of its many branches threatened it last year, so I looked away while the hubby trimmed away some excess. The weight was causing the trunk to split, making the pruning necessary to prolong the life of my tree.

With the low-hanging branches gone, our photo session last night required a slightly different angle.
It isn’t lost on me that I’m never alone in the annual photography sessions under the pink tree. This alone is a testament to how blessed my life has been while we’ve lived in this house. It’s just the two of us living here now, but thankfully the kids still come and go. This is still their “home”, and I hope it always will be. If not this physical place, I hope that wherever we call home will be special to the three of them as well.
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I’m also learning to appreciate the beauty in other areas of the country where one of our kids is pursuing dreams of her own.

There may come a time where schedules don’t align during the brief annual window when my tree boasts its riot of color. I’ve come to understand that a selfie taken under my tree will be sufficient, too. Like the pink tree, everything lives through different seasons. Important people fill some of our days. But other times, we enjoy things on our own, exploring our own needs, and discovering new things that give us joy.

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Many things in nature remind us of the cycles of life. There will be slow, sleepy days where not much seems to happen, times for rest and renewal. Then suddenly, big bursts of joy hit us. Even when unexpected storms rage, causing upheaval and turmoil, destruction even, we remember the winds will eventually blow themselves out, followed by a contemplative quiet. The storms pass, and it all begins again.

It is the promise of yet another springtime that fuels our hopes.

Another petal drifted to the ground just now, reminding me of the long list of springtime activities I hope to accomplish today. But as it does every single year, my tree has gifted me with a pause, a chance to reflect on the breathtaking beauty of life. And even though this year’s blooms won’t last much longer, I’m learning that if I keep my eyes open, nature will find another amazing way to remind me of what’s important tomorrow.

Welcome to spring, my friends!  Kim