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“This is the first daffodil that’s bloomed in my garden. I wanted you to have it,” said Eunice, the hospice chaplain as she handed it to me, its stem still bearing March’s chill. It was time for our Thursday morning visit, ongoing for over two years. Her smiling eyes met mine as she unzipped her jacket and followed me into the kitchen for a vase.

Her gift stirred me deeply—the harbinger of seasonal change ushering the return of color to washed-out landscapes, sonorous with the depleted energies of my old body. Yet, elation coursed through my hands while placing the daffodil in a vase filled with water.  

The plant’s six yellow petals and fluted cup or corona, though snipped from its earth-home, will gladden my psyche for days ahead. A close look within the corona reveals the plant’s reproductive system: six male stamens, surrounding the female pistil. Such flowering dates from the time of the Romans carrying these plants to Britain. In my perception, such longevity attests to the ongoing mystery of creation, that it is good, from the book of Genesis.

Despite spring’s hesitant warm-ups, daffodils have quickened my spirit, even more so this year. Such blooming splits apart their protective covering or spathe: such will be my experience, in time—some spring.