April showers bring May flowers

I’m exhausted as I have two papers and multiple exams to end my second semester of graduate school by next week.  I go to lay my head down just now and I can’t close my eyes.  I’m afraid of thoughts that haven’t yet come before I’ll find rest.  It’s May 2nd.  Mother’s Day to get through in six days and then three more days until it is May 11th again.  The second time I’ll live through it beyond what my dear, sweet, 16-year-old son, Sammy did, when he died overnight from experimenting with what he thought was LSD but instead a dealer made a synthetic poison concoction, 25i-NBOMe.  After unknowingly taking it, my son went to sleep Mother’s Day Eve 2014 and did not wake up the next day.  I’m crying all the time; sometimes just inside, other times visibly weeping or a tear or two escaping down my cheek.  I feel and it hurts.

Before two years ago, I recall my own pleasant smiles when remembering May was finally arriving.  I would always think of May 1st and say, “Yea, it’s May Basket Day”; the disappearing act ritual of waiting until dusk and hanging on doors those signs of changing seasons to give best wishes.  I was always smiling thinking about May Day Baskets because in the small rural town I grew up in, I had a very pleasing surprise for May Basket Day when I was in about second grade.  One of my favorite boyhood classmates had left May Day flowers at my home’s entry.  He had with care it seemed, crafted a flower vase out of a paper plate with another half paper plate inverse to it and stapled to keep it encapsulated to hold the fresh flowers the “basket” contained.  I imagine my boyhood friend had hand picked the flowers from neighbors’ gardens and bushes on the walk from his house to mine.  The most gorgeous flowers I’ve ever received; I’m not a roses sort-of-girl I guess.  It truly is the thought that counts with me and I was happily surprised.  

May Basket Day now seems more like a forgotten tradition; eventually, like flowers, wilted and drooped, too, I suppose.  For me, May Day Baskets represents a time of innocence.  A good thing.  Like the love for the one I miss heartbreakingly so and cry on for now.  #muchlovetosam