Springtime on the Eastern Shore

By Carrie Jacobson

It’s a chilly spring here on the Eastern Shore, but it is spring nonetheless. Daffodils, dogwoods, azaleas, tulips, forsythia – for them, I guess it’s the sun more than the temperature that matters. Cardinals are here, and bluebirds, and the hummingbirds began arriving this week. And one day, soon, it will be warm.

On Tuesday, I learned that Charlie Harris, husband of Karen Harris, a friend from the Record, had died. He was young – well, what I think of now as young. Mid-50s, maybe.

He was young for death.

Charlie’s passing has shaken me deeply, not because we were especially close, but because, I think, he always seemed so very much alive. He always seemed full of energy, full of smiles, full of vigor and enthusiasm and life. It seemed that he had so much life in him that he would, he must, live for a long, long time.

But none of us does.

As this wintry spring comes and goes, all too quickly, all to briefly, I will plant a thought of Charlie Harris, and be glad that I knew a man who was so full of life.