My wife hid much of her life from me for reasons unknown. It has now been six years since she passed, and I continue to find hints and pieces of that unknown life she chose to keep secret.
She was the valedictorian of her high school class. She earned “Honors at Entry” for college and graduated with high honors in three years. She never told me any of this. It was all discovered in a long-forgotten box behind another box, on a shelf, totally in plain sight.
In another box, I found a sample of her writing. She was in her first two quarters of college when she wrote this. She would not like me sharing it, but I will take it down if she complains. I would take that now.
Three Slants on Spring
by Judy- sometime in late 1970
1
“Do you believe me when I say I love you?”
“Of course, hon.”
Ah, spring and young lovers, thought Liddie, watching the young couple amble past her. “Have you ever noticed how they go together?” she said aloud to no one, since she walked alone down her favorite path.
“Oh, it feels so good just to be alive,” she whispered eagerly to a bunch of flowers, nodding agreement in the breeze. She tested the stream water with her hand. Finding it not excessively cold, she slipped off her shoes and dangled her feet into the water. Many happy hours were spent this way until she sensed rather than saw someone. She asked, “Who’s there?”
“Just me. I saw you and wondered if you knew it was getting late. You seemed so lost in your thoughts.”
“Thanks, Tom, you came along just in time to walk me home. How about a snack when we get there?”
“That sounds great to me.”
2
“Hey, you, get the hell out of here. Get away from my trash cans. “
The old bum moved slowly away from what looked like a prospective lunch. Spring, he thought, who needs it? What with all the mud? His mind stopped. Then, aloud, he spat, “Flowers. Yes, flowers, you can’t eat them. They are just a bothersome bunch of weeds.”
He trailed on, a dejected walking rag. He stopped before a rain barrel, reached for an old dirty sock in his pocket, and unceremoniously began scrubbing it. When he was satisfied, he stuffed it back into his pocket. By now, he was hungry. He ambled back to the old shack at the edge of the track, entered, and found his friend Joe.
“Well, Joe, how was your day?”
“Rotten and listen, if you say one damn word about spring. . .”
3
“Why don’t you Russians get out of Czechoslovakia? Why can’t you leave us alone?”
The elderly woman watched as the young rebels pitted their words against the iron tanks of the Russian soldiers. It’s no use, she thought. She called out in despair, “For God’s sake, don’t agitate them!”
The rebels, unheeded, renewed their bombardment of the soldiers.
“It’s not fair,” murmured the old lady. “It’s spring; the young should be occupied with love, with, yes, with the spirit of forgiveness.” She looked again at the scene that stirred her blood. Yet they were giving their country pride—pride that they would not give up their freedoms without a struggle—freedom to feed their own and determine their destiny.
She mused aloud, “Why do they have to grow up so fast, missing the beauty of spring? America with its boundless wealth, its love, and its flowers. The young people there walk among the flowers during spring. Why not here?”
The elderly woman turned in time to see one of the enraged soldiers cut down a young man. She crumpled to the sidewalk in unconcealed sobs. Silence descended over the group. A thin wail came from the sidewalk where the old women sobbed, “My son will now only see the spring flowers from a grave. Why?”
Memory is the Key 