Two hundred cheery yellow daffodils bloomed in my backyard the first spring in my family’s new house—about 10 years ago.
The next spring less bloomed.
The spring after…even less.
Many mulchings and rakings later, a few brave daffodils still push their heads through the caked mulch. My backyard is the same, but different.
When my family first moved into the large white house on the corner of a cul-de sac in the suburbs, I found a few surprises from the previous family.
First I discovered a set of woman’s golf clubs in the attic that would later fall into my possession as I set out to become a recreational golfer in my late teens.
I also found a BB gun and the most complicated exercise machine that I have ever seen. The many weights and settings looked as if you could work out any part of your body that you could imagine.
My brother laid claim on the gun. I, on the other hand, refused to let my mom put the machine to the curb. I never used the machine, I just sat on it. It made me feel rich to own a piece of complicated equipment.
Perhaps I felt that if I sat on it long enough, I would become stronger. Yet I quickly tired of it and the machine lay idle and lonely in our unfinished basement until finally my mom put it to the curb—it was broken anyway.
I didn’t find the daffodils until the spring. Hundreds poked up from our manicured islands of mulch and trees. The daffodils grew every which way and I would pick the best for my mom and put them in vases to surprise her when she got home.
That was 10 years ago.
Outside my window I see the heads of the few brave buds left, beginning to push through.
