So cruel, and yet so beautiful

You know the quote.

"April is the cruelest month," said T.S. Eliot.

So cruel, and yet so beautiful.

I thought about it today as I drove downtown. The greens, the blues, the vivid hues. Everything feels so alive.

Those who know me well know this is my season. April and its beauty. And its butterflies. And its baseball.

Like the character in Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," I am recalled to life.

And yet. And yet.

My sister died one April. So, too, did a beloved aunt and uncle. So, too, did my great-grandfather, 40 years ago. My mother was talking about it this morning.

Anyone familiar with American history knows the sadness that lies in this month. Such slaughter at Shiloh. Such an ending at Appomattox. Assassination on April 14, 1865. MLK in Memphis.

Each Easter week I think of one of my professors, Dr. Robert Drake, Southern gentleman, super scribe. He died in 2001.

In one of his short stories, "By Thy Good Pleasure," he writes about his father passing away on Good Friday.

"Everywhere (after the funeral) the afternoon sun was streaming down into the back yard... Everything was terribly, overwhelmingly alive. And Daddy was dead. He would never see those peach trees again."

So cruel, and yet so beautiful, this fourth month called April.