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Leon Bibb: Spring's arrival is just the shot we need

As the seasons change, we see our lives gradually changing too, in a direction that brings us new hope.

CLEVELAND — Spring is working to get a foothold in Northeast Ohio. The new season is always slow in coming in this part of the world. Often, there is what I call an "artificial spring" the way winter can disguise itself as it is flirting with us, pretending to be the springtime lover who brings early flowers and soft touches for a day or two before showing it is really winter with a still-frosty hand.  

But I am a fan of both winter and spring, accepting each season when its time has come.  The changing seasons help me set my personal timeclock on the days of my life.  My life during the past year has been one of pandemic, as has yours.  With spring inching toward us, I am ready to kick winter to the curb and open my arms to spring and its kisses on my face.

The calendar announces in full voice that official spring will come knocking March 20th. But that is the spring of the entire northern hemisphere. Warm climate, cold climate; no matter. Still, here on the wide-open-to-the wind shores of Lake Erie, seasons are often slow in changing. Winter can be the self-invited guest who is reluctant to leave regardless of our urgings. Waiting in the wings is spring in its yearly struggle to take winter's place.

In the last year, which has been divided by four seasons, we have sometimes found ourselves divided in our lives one from another. With the pandemic hanging over all of us, some divisions were even amplified or magnified.

Still, we stand on the threshold of spring, celebrating it as well as celebrating how we have survived the struggles the year has thrown at us. Over the four changing seasons has come a vaccine which in a way symbolizes a new season in our lives. A rebirth of sorts.

There is a feeling in the air. Like that of spring on the way. You can see it in the faces of the people who are expecting better days ahead, taking us away slowly from what has been a pandemic winter of despair stretching an entire year.  But we have to live day by day, waiting on the spring which will surely come. 

Spring is always slow in coming. But it is coming.    

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Editor's Note: The below story aired on March 6, 2021

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