Springtime and Grieving Friends: Another Monday with Niko

     Once again at the cafe, sipping coffee at an open window, looking out onto a resounding splash of orange tulips, getting a little past their prime, but that makes them all the more beautiful (said by someone certainly past her so-called prime). So these orange tulips have wide open petals, not forming those tightly closed ones that we imagine when someone says "tulip." These orange tulips--and, really, orange is the only name for them--there is no subtlety here--look like ever so many Tibetan monks, arms spread wide toward the heavens, and I know if I listened closely, I could hear the earthy "ooooommmm." Buddhist monk tulips.
     I have just returned from Reno, visiting those friends I wrote about here last fall. Their son, a young man I had known since he was a child, died at age 30. When I contacted them then, offering to visit, V. replied, "Thanks, but no thanks--we are seeing only therapists and lawyers, but I will let you know when, if ever, we are able to see anyone." That when was about a month ago, when I received the email.  "know your lives are busy, but would appreciate a visit," sent to me and our other friend, Elise. And we got right on it.
It was a hard weekend in so many ways--there are no words of comfort, as we know, for someone who has lost a child--an only child.
     There is nothing to offer in terms of words, so we offered our presence. Listening, asking a few questions, backing off when we heard, "I don't want to talk about it." We went for short walks, played frisbee with the dog Blue, saw Pyramid Lake, saw V's paintings, ate vegetarian minestrone and E's fresh bread, and went to a thai restaurant our final evening. We spoke of many things, but, especially with V., they all circled back to the lost son. And so, with fruit trees in bloom, tulips past their prime, leaves on the big trees finally emerging, slowly, as if to be cautious with their entrance, making certain it's dramatic, with people tucking into yogurt and granloa, burritos, muffins, and cappuccino, and a cool breeze coming in through the open window, on this mild, sunny day, we know that grief lives in this world, and that no matter how much we mistakenly want to see spring as a symbol of ressurection (But Jesus is not a tulip! protested my bishop), as uplifted as we all feel with warm weather, it is small comfort, if any, for those who mourn.