Life has been much more difficult than I'd like to admit these past few weeks. Both of my parents have not been well, and the days are now a blur of emergency room visits, trauma unit vigils, infirmary stays, long days, sleepless nights, doctor consultations, CAT-scans, blood tests, hospital coffee, and worry-filled e-mails and phone calls between my brothers, sisters and me. It has been emotionally draining for all of us, my parents included. I just want everything to be the way it was. If only I could give them hugs, put bandages on their ailments and make everything better. Funny, that's what my dad said about us as we kids got older -- no longer would a parent's easy remedies fix life's bigger hurts.

Yet even now, as my parents approach their 80s, I see them as I did when I was a child. Working. Busy. Taking care of their children. Still in their late 30s, early 40s. When I look at them, my mind turns their gray hair dark. It erases the walker my mother now uses. It sees past their aches and pains. My mind plays tricks on me. But the image of them as young and healthy is one I can't shake any more than my deep, deep love for two people I would do anything for. Anything to make them better. Anything to hold on to them forever, though I know life's course.

It does look, at long last, like they are, finally, on a road that will take them back to their home, just in time for Dad to break ground for a garden and Mom to pull paperwork together for taxes. They want to putter around their house. To visit with friends. To spend time with grandchildren -- the first great-grandchild is on the way -- and more than anything else, to be with each other. Spring has never been more welcome.