Hope and Daffodils

The daffodils in our yard are out a little early this year. 

As you may now, daffodils, the yellow flowers that come up in early spring, are a symbol for hope for cancer patients. The American Cancer Society often hosts a fundraiser centered around daffodils. And a couple of years ago, there was a lot of news about the possibility of a compound in daffodils being used to kill cancer cells. (Of course, that was one of those "maybe this could work someday after a whole lot of research on it" that turned into "Daffodils could soon cure cancer!" Maybe some day. These things take time.)

Daffodils are special, though, because they are often one of the first flowers to come out in the spring. Mine are a beautiful bright yellow, which stands out against any snow that might still be around, or the brown earth that hasn't yet turned green.

They are symbols of hope because they manage to give us something great even when they are surrounded by something not so great.

Some years, I don't see daffodils until late April. This year, they bloomed about a month earlier than that.

Maybe nature knows we could use a shot of hope right now?

I've written about my daffodils before. I had a piece published with The Mighty a couple of years ago that talks about my daffodils and why they are especially important to me. They grow in the middle of a blackberry patch.

Here's a picture I took this morning:

(The daffodils are joined by some crocus friends. The crocuses usually come up even earlier than the daffodils, but are usually long gone by the time the daffodils arrive.)

You can see the daffodil is surrounded by the brown canes of the blackberries, which are covered with thorns.

If you remember the story of my blackberry patch, or you click above and read it again, then you know that I didn't plant the blackberries. We think a squirrel may have found a berry and then buried it in what used to be a shade garden, full of ferns and hostas. I used to see little thorny stems come up and I would pull them out, not knowing what they were, but treating them like other weeds. Six years ago, I needed shoulder surgery, and I couldn't do my weeding. Those stems grew into blackberries, and my shade garden is now a really productive blackberry patch. But some of those old plants still come up, including the daffodils.

So for me, daffodils are even more of a symbol of hope than they might be for other cancer patients.

I didn't ask for Follicular Lymphoma, like I didn't ask for that blackberry patch full of thorns. But they both came anyway. And growing in the middle of it all is a bright yellow piece of hope, a small bit of beauty, reminding me to look for the good in the middle of the bad.

And these days, the whole symbol might be eve more appropriate. Thorns are, after all, a plant's way of saying "keep your distance."

I'm not one to say "stay positive," because I think the message there is to ignore the bad stuff.

Instead, I say "stay hopeful," because that message recognizes that the bad stuff exists, but there are good things in the middle of it, and a wish that more good things will come.

So stay hopeful, everyone. Look for the daffodils among the thorns.

And take care of yourselves.