Spring: a cure for all ills ~ May 13, 1993

David Heiller

Nature has a way of healing people, both their bodies and their minds. I’m reminded of that every year about this time. I get down on my hands and knees, and you could say I’m praying in a primitive way, though mostly I’m pulling weeds.

There was a lot of healing to be done last weekend. Cindy took sick on Thursday, and could barely get out of bed for two days. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat with us and help with homework and add that un-definable magic that mothers bring to a home. A cloud fell over the house.

Out of commission...

But the sun shone on Friday. Rain fell in warm spurts on Saturday, a good rain, gentle and full of life. The rhubarb grew about three inches each day. By Sunday Cindy was able to stand and talk and say thank you for her Mother’s Day cards and flowers, and the cloud was gone.

In another time and place that plague might have killed her. But not this time of year. Not with weeds being pulled from the garden by the wheelbarrow-full, and orioles singing at 6 a.m.

More proof? Noah took sick on Sunday, and had the same symptoms as Cindy. He lay on the couch all day Monday, even missed school, something he hates. He’s only nine.

I came home from work on Monday afternoon to spell Cindy. Noah and I sat on the couch, and spied a rose breasted grosbeak in the maple tree, 15 feet away. He was staring at the double-sided, Alvin Jensen deluxe bird feeder, which was filled with black sunflower seeds next to the window. He looked uncertain, like maybe he had never sat on an Alvin Jensen bird feeder before. If so, he’s one of the few birds that hadn’t.

Birds cured Noah!

After 10 seconds, he flew over, hovered in the air for five seconds, then made a gentle landing. He seemed to stare through the window at Noah and me. I couldn’t see him smile, but he probably did. His rose breast filled us with joy. What a beauty.

An hour later, Noah was playing outside with the dog. He was better, and that was no coincidence. You can’t bottle rose-breasted grosbeaks and take them like medicine three times a day. They’re much more powerful than that.

How powerful is the earth in spring? Pearl S. Buck had a character in The Good Earth who worked in the fields while she was pregnant, right up until she gave birth. Then she strapped the baby to her back, and kept working, her milk dripping onto the black soil.

It was like that last weekend. There was Sue Landwehr, crouching over her flower beds, pulling weeds. She had that contented look on her face, and you could see that she wouldn’t have traded places with anyone anywhere right then.

There was Frank Magdziarz, straight as a bean pole at age 76, looking over the 20 acres of oats that he had planted that morning, a field as spotless as a new brown carpet.

There was Steve Hillbrand, stretching in the morning sun like a cat, feeling the warmth in the air and saying in an almost surprised voice, yes, by golly, spring IS here.

There was Donna Cronin with an excited grin and an armful of trees that she had received from the Finlayson Sportsmen’s Club. She couldn’t wait to plant them on her farm.

And there was Cindy, on her feet, the flu driven back like a lifting fog, on her hands and knees, helping me pull weeds.

Ah spring. It’ll cure what ails you.

Now if only the Twins would start winning.