… I’m beginning to believe it.

Every day I walk around our property looking for signs of awakening plants. One day there will be a budless stem. The next day big, plump buds. One day there is nothing coming out of the ground, and the next day 10 rosinweed leaflets poking through! This is the time of year when it seems like a magician is strolling around behind me saying abracadabra and waving a magic wand, making the plants suddenly come to life!

That’s exaggeration, I know, but that’s what it feels like every day now. Change is happening so fast! This morning I peeked at my little garden where I’d planted radish and turnip seeds last week and there was no sign of them. Literally four hours later, I went out and found a dozen tiny sprouts coming up. If you’re not a gardener, you might not understand the feelings that generates, but my heart simply jumps for joy when I see these new plants and buds appear!

Just look at some of the magical surprises I found in the yarden today:

What does all this have to do with parallel universes? Well, as you regular readers know, my brother has been in the hospital for nearly 2 months battling COVID-19. For the past few weeks it seemed he’d hit a plateau of stable but still on life support, with little changing from day to day. But, yesterday, he was breathing mostly on his own and was stable enough to be moved to a different hospital for recovery and rehab. Suddenly, it felt like a shift in the universe… like a flower suddenly opening or a root sprouting new shoots. It felt like there was a possibility he might recover and come home. And, honestly, that’s the first time I let myself think about him actually coming back to life from this horrible disease.

So, if there are parallel universes, perhaps I’m experiencing them now. As the buds and flowers and leaves of spring bring hope for new life, so, too, perhaps my brother will be coming back to his family and back to living.

That’s a nice thing about spring… It brings a lot of hope.