TULIPS

Yellow tulips were taking over my flower garden.

They were showing up in places I KNOW I didn’t plant them. As lovely as they were; they were crowding out other flowers.

So last summer I dug up a couple of buckets full of yellow tulip bulbs and buried them on the canal bank across the street from our house.

Last fall, not long after my brother’s cancer diagnosis changed from hopeful to grim,

I planted a dozen pink “Plant for Hope” tulip bulbs in one vacated spot.

The pink tulips survived the long cold winter. Sadly he did not.
Sail on little brother.

I’d almost forgotten about the yellow tulip bulbs buried on the canal bank.

This spring, there they were.

They survived, untended, the long, dry summer and the deep harsh winter.

Last Sunday, Mothers’ Day, DH called me to the window. He pointed out a young man who had been hurrying his bicycle down the street.

He stopped, returned to the patch of yellow and gathered blossoms, then continued on.

We imagined a mother or young wife who would get fresh yellow flowers for Mothers’ Day. It made me smile.