Ides of April?

What is it about April? It just seems to me that bad things seem to occur in April. Most recently of course, was the massacre at Virginia Tech, then there was the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine, and Waco. I won't go into a lot of detail, but personally, it's not a great month either. My dad died on April 30 six years ago, not to mention numerous hospital stays over the years and the year me and my sister were involved in a car accident. No injuries but it was still upsetting and has made me leery of going out shopping on the Saturday before Easter Sunday.

It just seems like an odd month for so much unhappiness and disaster. It's the beginning of spring like weather, so you can't say it's the dreariness of cold and snow that gets people down or that cabin fever has gotten them depressed. April has some of the prettiest days we experience, as the soaring humidity of summer is absent. The forsythia bloom with a profusion of delicate, bright yellow flowers that make even the cloudiest day seem cheerful. The daffodils are in bloom and the air is heavy with the sweet scent of hyacinths. The grass is finally turning green again and at least a couple weeks out of the month are sunny and warm. You get the itch to get out there and work in your garden and free your roses from their blanket of dried leaves. For the first time in months you can spend your time outdoors without multiple layers of clothing, shivering and sporting a red nose like Rudolph. The days are longer and warmer and everything seems new and fresh.

So why the unspeakable acts such as school shootings? There are probably as many answers as perpetrators of these horrible acts. When some kids are looking forward to proms, spring dances, graduation and new jobs, is it just too much for the unattached, outcast, and loners to continue watching the rest of the world enjoying themselves when all they feel is anger or despair? In some cases we will probably never know, and in other cases we won't know until it's too late.

Hopefully, some day soon, we will all make it a point to at least try and include the disenfranchised and misfits. Let's hope when we do, they are willing to accept our hand in friendship. Friendship, after all, is a two way street.

The Ides of April? Everyone has heard of the Ides of March and the sense of foreboding that surrounds that date, March 15. When the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar to "beware the Ides of March", the expression wouldn't have invoked a dark mood. Ides of March at that time was merely a term used to denote the appearance of the full moon. Ides was one of the terms used to indicate lunar events; there is also the ides of April and the ides of May. But after the bloody assasination of Julius Caesar in 44BC, the Ides of March came to represent a day of abrupt change. No longer is it a term referring to any one of 12 ides, occurring every month of the year.

Enough of useless trivia; hope everyone has a good week starting with an AnderMonday!

Screen cap courtesy of Sahira, merci beaucoup!