A Flower Blooms in Winter

The strangest thing happened yesterday. Well, at least I thought it was strange. Actually, not as much strange as it was inspiring. On an otherwise cold and gloomy winters day, it seemed as though spring had taken a giant exhale into our home and left us with a wonderful treat. 

Earlier this winter I brought a very dead and snow covered plant into the house from our patio and stuck it in a utility closet. My only reasoning behind this was to savor the wonderful pot (purchased at Sprout - favorite store of all times) before it got pounded by another blanket of snow and started to loose its youth. While not thinking to really do anything with it until spring arrived and I could re-plant it, I asked my husband (John) to grab the vacuum for me yesterday. Instead of opening the door where the vacuum normally sits, he opened this random little utility closet. In it he saw the pot. "Babe," he yelled. "Are you growing a plant in this closet?" "What?!" I answered. "You should see this." "Bring it up," I replied.

Up the stairs he comes with the most gorgeous pot full of blooming magenta flowers, nearly a foot high. 

I, being a somewhat cheesy and glass-is-always-half-full-type-gal, immediately thought of the miracle of life. I said to John, "I could cry."  "why?" he said. "Because that grew into the most beautiful pot of flowers and it has been sitting in a utility closet all winter." Furthermore, I was sure I hadn't seen any buds amidst the sticks and dead leaves several months ago as I brought it in from the snow. "This is just strange to me." I said. My thoughts then turned to my late uncle who was a florist. I thought maybe he had a hand in this. Was he just saying hello? This I will never know. What I do know is that for a moment yesterday I believed in something bigger than my everyday life. My thoughts turned to the notion that we can all come back. For all the storms we weather and the deadness that often seems to exist in our lives (especially after a very long and gray winter) we can come back. There will always be an opportunity to feel alive again - looking beautiful, feeling magenta, standing taller than we were before.