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Rain or shine, short-staffed or no staff, we help keep your business going: Answering phones / taking messages / providing information / Taking credit card orders / collecting and transmitting confidential information via email, SMS, or API (linking with existing systems). Our agents are trained to process sensitive information with courtesy, respect and maintain the strictest of confidence. We also help with those intermittent overflow call surges during business hours, and cover your customer inquiries when you are closed. “Always here so you don’t have to be” – We help keep things running smoothly 24/7, 365 days a year. Tahoecall.com
Blog 11 – April 2021 M. Hines
March winds blow brisk across the mountain tops here in the Sierra Nevada. Winter’s grasp attempts to hold fast while Spring’s challenge begins. Our weather ping-pongs between as the two seasons battle for dominance. The last of March winds blow, April showers will bring May’s flowers, and Spring will eventually prevail. But for now we perch within this precarious environment where light and darkness coexist.
Crocus and snow drops are a first hopeful sign. They peek through late winter snows. Gardens are calling, seeds are spouting (maybe still on our windowsills). Bulbs, tulips, and lilies are waking up and will soon break through the earth to bloom. Rain showers; puddles, galoshes, new grass, and spring cleaning. Easter returns once again. Renewal, resurrection, a fresh start and new beginnings. Baskets, candy rabbits, chicks, egg hunts, joyfulness and awakenings. Clean slates, forgiveness, even the animals anticipate and wait. Mild days are coming soon; warming earth with promise rising as butterflies and birdsong return.
“… For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”
– Song of Solomon 2:10-12 KJV
Every aspect, every component of spring is contained within those 38 words. It makes the gardener in me have‘itchy fingers’. I want to get outside and plant things! I want to submerge my hands in the warming soil and see the fruit tree branches swelling with promise; ready to burst forth in their yearly renewal of blossom and green display. Warmer days, longer days, soft breezes, bright sunshine and cobalt, blue skies! All contribute to our feeling of well-being.
April 4, 2021 this Easter, springtime seems more hopeful. There are glimmers and signs that this Covid Shakespearian-Long “winter of our discontent” may finally be thawing. Vaccinations are being administered in good numbers; seeds of protection tossed by sowers anticipating all will fall among fertile soil (despite some fear and anxiety). Each vaccine received generates new energy, promise and excitement. We finally can see some light beginning to break through the dark clouds of this past-year’s horizon. “For lo the winter is past, the rain [soon may be] over and gone…” Yet, for some it may linger.
When my father passed away years ago, I used to hear these words and wonder, ‘when will this winter, this sadness be past? When will this rain of tears be over and gone?’ His passing has never left me; it has never been ‘over and gone’– but I have learned to carry him with me as so many who bear the fresh wounds of losing loved ones to Covid. And, though not visible to the eyes of others, death removes a huge piece of existence for those that remain.
April 19, 1995 The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK was bombed. The pictures of this building remain in my memory of a building still standing despite a huge chunk blown away from its side. It illustrated best what the affects of a loved one’s death “look like” for those left behind. How can this loss, this cavernous hole within our souls ever be filled? For all who are going through such tragedy now, I can only say it will –to a degree- be filled in, though a scar or scab may remain. The compassion and support of family, friends, the ‘kindness of strangers’ who care, all contribute to helping us continue; one foot in front of the other. You will reach that time when light breaks through despair’s darkness (“for lo the winter is past...) and birdsong once again will bring a smile.
This winter of Covid, often described as a war, is an apt comparison. We have an incomprehensible number of casualties (still counting), and many sacrifices have been made (some more willingly than others). We’ve had limits placed on necessities, on where we could go, who we could see, what we could do, and what we’ve been asked to do. As in war time, receiving credible news and information was initially difficult, and finding verifiably ‘good’ news can often be elusive.
But lately reports are starting to grow more positive. There are more visual signs and evidence of hope -like tree branches beginning to swell with green buds appearing- that we are coming closer to that elusive ‘not much longer’ place.
Our abhorrence for dwelling on the past is natural, especially when the past was tragic. It is understandably more humane to move forward; embrace optimism and aspiration. A bittersweet dilemma though; we need both memory and hope to move constructively and successfully out of this pandemic. We must remember what was sacrificed and work on creating the means to prevent the repeat of such tragedy. We must not be complacent in assuming we’re done, we’ve reached our ‘happily ever after‘, or that the progress made and resulting goodness will last forever. We will succeed. We are coming through this darkness, but like wars past, with respect, we should not forget this experience any more than we forget those we lost.
We are almost there! Stay the course! Get your vaccines, wear your masks (just a little longer) to protect others while they wait to get their vaccines. We should move past the ‘not much longer’ phase soon, and begin the ‘back to expected’ phase of our recovery; something Governments, Schools, Hospitals, Frontline workers, Business, Communities – all of us have yearned for. Respect, patience and perseverance will prevail!
Whether experienced through Sacred, Secular, or a combination of traditions, Easter and Springtime have always been messengers of hope. And after this past-year-plus of tragedy and isolation, that’s something we all can celebrate.
