The crab apple trees are blooming. They are about the only thing since lambs are eating everything else. The hydrangeas are long desperate looking sticks. The geraniums look forlorn without blossoms and the pansies all gave up without even bothering to flower. It looks like a commercial for a vacation on a desolate stretch of desert. The lambs are eager tasters. Luckily the crab apples are just too darn tall. There’s a lesson in that I think. Stand up; rise above the worry, the pain, even the heartbreak. Reach for the sun, soak it up and forget about the mess on the ground.

Benjamin is graduating. It has been a long road for him to get here filled with false starts, disappointments, and the struggle of a wildly ADHD 6 foot 4 inch mancub trying to survive amidst the orderly hall of academia. The business office called this week to notify us of $73 worth of miscellaneous charges that needed to be paid so the kid could walk. There were lost keys, lost books, and a lockout entry fee mixed into the fee. Locked out and lost were apt descriptions of the college adventure.

And yet at every turn, he persevered. He called campus security and sheepishly asked to be let back in when he lost the keys for the twentieth time, he ordered two sets of books, sometimes three, and he pounded on the door and just kept getting back in there.

I am enormously proud of this brave young man who is our son. It is an equally sad and joyous week and by God we are going to CELEBRATE with this kid who deserves trumpets. It’s spring and the sun is shining. We are damned well going to look up!