AUNT ROSY'S DAFFODILS

On a bitterly cold morning late last November I drove from Kennebunk Beach to my still-under-construction new home nestled in the Wells woods. I brought with me a trowel and a white plastic bag stuffed with several dozen anemic daffodil bulbs.

Parker, my gardening guru and wonderful helper who had dug up the bulbs, warned, “Val, it’s way too late in the season to plant them. They might not make it.” 

Oh no. Despite all odds, I knew Aunt Rosy’s daffodils would.

These daffodils have bloomed every spring outside every house where I’ve lived — in New York, New Jersey and now Maine. They bloomed abundantly and almost in defiance when difficult circumstances shook my foundation, like the Spring after my young son had emergency surgery to repair his lacerated eyelid. They flourished other Aprils too, after a trying divorce, the horrors of 911, the 2008 stock market crash, plus countless vicissitudes that changed my life. They kept coming back.

White Flower Farm would never put these daffodils on their catalog cover. They are not show-stopping white Thalias or sunburst Jetfires. These are simply early-blooming mongrels with grit that never fail to rise from the cold earth every Spring. They remind me there is light after the long dark days, that the sun will brighten and warm our lives once again.

So who is Aunt Rosy? She was my mom’s sister who lived in suburban Philadelphia. As a young bride in the mid-1960s I was visiting her and I noticed a profusion of daffodils brightening her otherwise drab front yard. My aunt was a whiz at canasta and gin rummy, and a phenomenal story-teller. She even whispered my first dirty joke. “What do you get when you grab a ghost? A handful of sheet!” 

But a gardener?  Nope. Except for her daffs.

“You should dig up some of these daffodils and plant them at your home,” she said. “They’re quite  hardy and don’t need any special attention.” So I did. And so their odyssey began.

Early this week I walked out to the row of pine trees that border my new side yard where I planted the bulbs last November. I immediately spotted several clumps of two-inch-high green shoots popping up. Hello! 

Today when I peek out my dining room window, I see they’ve grown a few more inches. Yes! Despite a cold Spring rain and temperatures stuck in the 40s here along the Maine coast, something familiar is recurring.

Mr. Wonderful and I are now in house-bound quarantine, just like you. We watch the daily health briefings, we enjoy “virtual family reunions” on Zoom, we unpack boxes in the basement and rearrange bedroom furniture. My hair is getting longer and my waist is getting bigger. 

I can’t wait for the day when we can go to Nunan’s for lobster, to Alisson’s for their famous clam chowder, or to Hurricane where we’ll stand this-close to friends gathered around the curved oak bar.

That day will come. My nascent daffodils confirm there will be joy and beauty in our world once more. They haven’t failed me yet and, virus be damned, I know they won’t now.

(Thank you, Ken Janes, for sending me several of your photos — yours could truly make the cover of a White Flower Farm catalog.)