The weather was beautiful today. I missed a good chunk of it. I was in the middle of painting the bathroom as I continue to try to catch up with the maintenance Jane and I neglected when her health began to fail. There is nothing physically difficult about any of these things.

Emotionally is a different story.

But when I was done I went for a walk. The moment I walked out the door I knew I was over-dressed.. Even after I left my sweater behind I quickly overheated. It hardly seemed like March 12 in New England–more like March 12 in northern Florida.

I met two dogs in my travels. One of the neighbors has a new yellow lab puppy. He played watchdog, barking at every person who passed by his fence. Jane would have gone over to talk with him. She had a way with dogs.

I encountered a female pit bull as well. She was well-behaved until I stopped to talk with her owners. Then she got a bit protective and tried to run me off. I felt Jane at my shoulder then and the dog stopped and became friendly. I let her sniff my fingers and gave her head a brief stroke. She headed back into her yard before turning to bark at me again as I left.

People were out running and riding their bikes. I saw a young couple on a motorcycle who were wearing t-shirts. People had the windows down on their cars–and I heard a wide range of music erupting from them as they passed by. Jane and I would dance in the car when someone pulled up with their music so loud they begged everyone on the road to share it with them.

When I got home I took a short tour of the yard–as we always did. The winds this weekend had knocked down a lot of twigs and branches. Some of the mums I wintered over have begun to sprout and the buds on some of the trees are beginning to swell. Some day this week I will have to cut back the Rose-of-Sharon out by the fence. I wonder if I will find another hummingbird nest there this year.

I opened the windows and the slider after I came in–both to air out the paint fumes and invite the sounds of the neighborhood in. The birds were singing and some of the neighborhood children were doing what neighborhood children do on the first nice day of spring. There was a kickball game in progress across the street–and a game of tag or something a few doors down that was creating the high-pitched squeals that only emerge from the lungs of small, excited children.

Jane would have loved today. We would have let the bathroom wait another day. We would have walked, talked to the dogs, and listened to the birds and the children. Tonight, we would have watched some TV or picked out a movie and snuggled on the couch.

I suggest you go do that with the person you love tonight. I suggest the two of you find some time to walk outside and enjoy this weather tomorrow–and the dogs and the birds and the children.

You never know how many walks–how many beautiful days–you have left.