Soon, once again...

Just the other day, I placed my daffodil order as I do each year at this time. Its more than just giving to a wonderful cause though. It was what begin my mother's memory garden. The day of my mother's passing, and I returned home from the hospital, there on the table were these beautifully opened daffodils in a vase. I had ordered them weeks before and now, their brightness and hint of spring was before me in my darkest time. And placed into the vase with them was the single branch of pussywillows taken from her room before I left it. And so, her garden began.

Each year, I order daffodils and memories return as though it were just yesterday. Still, I'm not sure how but at the same time it seems forever in the past. As though a hundred years have gone by and time moves so slowly. I still have the pussy willow branch, and I have added another one each year since, in the spring time when they come to bloom in her garden, early spring. In March, at the anniversary time of our loss, there upon my table will sit in a vase, a bunch of daffodils and it will remind me that spring nears us. It's bulbs I will plant into her garden. And I'll watch memories come alive once again, as the last of the snows melt and the flowers beneath break ground.