Fleeting glimpses

Where the Vernal Equinox was yesterday, today is the first full day of spring -- and it feels like it. It's bright and sunny, and there's a light breeze that carries the sweet scent of blossoms. It's even quite warm outside (as long as you're in the sun).

But it's a day that brings a small chill along with it, as it marks one month since the death of a friend who lived in the neighbourhood.

She'd always seemed frail, but maybe in the way that thin, pretty blonde women can appear to me. She embodied that lovely fragility we once associated with old-fashioned china dolls.

There hasn't been a service -- not even an announcement -- so I suppose I have some unresolved feelings surrounding her death, especially as I was the one on the phone with the 9-1-1 person.

I probably won't forget what it was like to be standing in the road when the firetruck, lights flashing,  sirened its way to a stop in front of me. Nor will I forget the confusion of several conversations going on at once, as the struggle to get her to treatment went on.

There's more that I remember, but that's something I still need to hold in my heart, a heart that still gets a knot when I think of her. It feels something like that heart of knotty tree roots enclosing the batch of crocuses in the photo.

Someone too young, someone to remember.