EVERY SPRING HAS A FEW SURPRISES

THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRICYCLE

Our backyard neighbor has a grand little garden I enjoy watching erupt each new spring. This year there's been a charming add-on. Their little girl has grown out of diapers, and hesitantly into the seat of her new tricycle. Watching her the other day from my second-floor window was a lesson in triumph...

At first she sat on it trying to reach the pedals. Then to pump the pedals.Then to maneuver the handlebars. She didn't make a great deal of progress down the sidewalk, but really it was her many pauses that were the most instructive. There she would sit, pondering her journey. To pump or not to pump? To turn or not to turn? Especially, to be or not to be?

Unlike Hamlet, she was not contemplating her death; she was speculating on her life. I couldn't hear her sing-song chattering from my window, but I'm sure I heard some of her thoughts: "Gee, I wonder how long before I get the hang of this thing...I wonder what tomorrow morning will look like...what will I do with it...what kind of tomorrows come after that...will I grow as tall as Daddy and as nice as Mommy...?"

Everything around her was static and today. The tricycle, the sidewalk, the garden, her secret observer. On the other hand, everything about her was mobile and tomorrow. Her thoughts, her questions, her hopes, her expectations, most of all her exuberant curiosity.

And so as closed the curtains of my private sky-box, a comforting thought slipped into place. Springs still happen, gardens still sprout, children still grow, their tomorrows still arrive. And with their arrival, this amazing world of ours still keeps spinning and trying and occasionally -- because of little grownup girls and boys -- succeeding.

MEET YOUR PARENTS

Whether or not your parents are still alive, the operative question always remains the same. Have you ever met them...? Chances are, not likely...!

All that children see in their parents is all that their parents saw in their parents. Only what's there to see as they are, here and now. But children forget their parents were people before they were parents. They had braces and acne, hopes and dreams, youth and vigor, all nothing to do with having children.

Un-tombing their long ago youth is not easy for a child. Perhaps it's not even possible. But here's a spring-cleaning idea! Stay on the lookout for forgotten old photo albums, because somewhere, somehow, they just may house the sacred key to this soulful search...

....an old candid of your parents before they were parents. When they were lean and young and beautiful and full of tomorrows. If you come across some unseen scene like that, hold it close in your hands as you feel the sweet tears in your eyes. This will be a meeting like none you've ever had before.