April is NOT the cruellest month

I save that distinction for May.

In late February and early March, when the snow is still coming down but the sky and the ground have gone a little soft, there is such a wonderful promise of spring, of gentleness.  I go outside and breathe in great lungfuls of well-being.  The world is opening up.  My mind is opening up.  There is all the excitement of the grass blades peeping out, crocuses, coltsfoot, then primroses.  A symphony of colors, sunlight, and frog songs.

But somehow, by the time the trilliums really get going there's a sour note in the symphony.  I try to breathe in a lungful of well-being, but all I get is an overwhelming desire to blow my nose.  And so May begins, with its long spiral of coughs, runny noses, runny eyes, ear aches, and headaches.  April may breed lilacs out of the dead land, but May piles on an obscene rush of tree-leaves and grass.  It's wanton.  It's beautiful.  It makes it so I CANNOT breathe. 

I've always been thankful that I didn't have allergies.  I felt sorry for the kids sitting on the sidelines in gym class, holding their inhalers.  I felt sorry for co-workers snuffling away at their desks in spring time.  Thank goodness I dodged that!  All I had was a chronic hacking cough and raccoon eyes.  Lucky!  I was startled in my late 20s when a doctor told me that I DID have allergies, and that was the reason I had bronchitis every year like clockwork.  I think her exact words were, "For goodness sake, just take some Claratin!"

It took three doctors telling me this on separate occasions before the message began to sink in.  But what a message!  I didn't have to drag myself through the spring in a hopeless fog.  I could feel better!  Not great, but better.  Much, much better.

So, please imagine me caught in a long, slow-motion forehead slap this spring, when I discovered that Duncan and Tristan have not simply had the bad luck to catch every single cold that comes along.  Say it with me:  They have allergies.  Seasonal allergic rhinitis.  It took me 28 years and several doctors to figure this out for myself.  It only took me three years and two doctors to figure it out for them.  I think I'm learning!

All of this is a long-winded way of saying, Duncan and Tristan have been sick, but they're beginning to feel better. And tomorrow it will be June.