Spring was never going to come. That’s what it felt like when I looked out the window of my new house at another gray and gloomy morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the sun.
Rain pattered the windows as I made breakfast. My children finished eating and went back upstairs. I grabbed an umbrella and stepped out to look for signs of life in the garden. But the ground was soggy and cold. Not a bud anywhere, and they were way past due. It’s not a garden with no flowers, I thought. That about summed up my life these days. A garden with no flowers. And no hope of seeing any anytime soon.
Once I never would have doubted spring was on its way. No matter how long or cold the winter, I could count on everything getting brighter eventually. Just like I had counted on my marriage of 17 years, or the job I’d loved. But this year my marriage had ended, my job was downsized, the kids and I had moved to a new house. Could I ever again feel the hope that had once come so naturally to me?
It was my dad’s idea to buy a new house after my husband and I split. “I don’t know,” I’d said. When I’d bought a house with my husband I had been full of hope for the future. Even when it was just the two of us I knew our family would grow to fill the house as sure as a garden filled with flowers in the spring. Now I felt safer in a small apartment, the perfect size for my downsized expectations.
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“A house would be a new start,” Dad had insisted. “It’s like preparing the ground for all the blessings to come. Besides,” he’d added, “you need a garden for your angel.” The angel had been a gift from Mom and Dad, a foot-tall stone carving. I’d collected angels since I was a little girl. I knew Dad was right: What better place for an angel than in a garden, surrounded by flowers? And so we’d moved to a new house.
The angel hadn’t gotten near any flowers, though. She sat in the garage, gathering dust. In our old home I could look out at her in winter and trust in spring’s promise. Her presence announced “there is a garden here” even when no plants were growing. I no longer trusted in that kind of promise.
I walked back toward the house, the muddy ground sucking my boots down with every step. As I passed the garage I caught sight of my angel. She looked as hopeless as I felt but surrounded by concrete and metal. Even the soggy garden is more likely to sprout flowers than the garage, I thought.
I went in and kneeled down beside her. “Dare I risk my disappointment if I set you in a garden that will never bloom again?” I asked. I brushed the dust from her flowing gown and carried her around to the front of the house. I put her down outside the big bay window. “There is a garden here,” I said as I brushed the dirt off my hands. “Maybe I don’t have my flowers, but I do have my angel.”
The weather wasn’t any warmer or brighter, but for the first time in weeks it felt like it might be one day. Just maybe. This is what hope feels like, I thought. How I missed it.
The following week held no change in the weather. From the bay window I checked on my angel. She’s no match for this weather, I thought as I fixed dinner one evening.
The late school bus pulled up out front, dropping off my 14-year-old after basketball practice. Heavy footsteps pounded up the walk. “Wipe your feet!” I ordered as Mackenzie burst in through the door.
“Mom!” he cried breathlessly. “There are flowers!”
“Flowers?” I repeated. What did that mean?
“Outside,” Mackenzie insisted. “There are flowers in the yard!”
“Maybe you saw dandelions,” I said. “They’re just weeds, Mackenzie.”
“No, come and look,” he insisted. He tugged me by the arm to the front of the house. My hands flew to my mouth. Hundreds of tiny, delicate flowers dotted the lawn. They looked almost like violets, but were the color of summer clouds. I’d never seen flowers like them before. They were so fragile I couldn’t imagine how they’d grown in all this rain and cold.
And even more amazing was where they had sprouted: in an almost perfect circle around my angel. “There must be more somewhere,” I whispered as I bent down to brush the petals with my fingertips. Mackenzie and I scoured the entire yard, front and back. There wasn’t a single bloom except for those growing around the angel.
“I guess the angel brought life into the garden,” I said.
Mackenzie nodded. “She must have planted the seeds herself.”
Planted the seeds, I thought as we went back inside. Seeds, like hope, couldn’t grow unless you planted them. I’d planted mine when I moved my angel even though I didn’t believe the garden would bloom. That simple act had planted a seed that created all these flowers. Who knew what else that faith could bring to my life if I only let it. I’d been waiting for a new life to give me hope again. Now I saw hope was the only thing that could give me a new life.
I couldn’t wait for Dad to see the angel’s flowers. Each one a promise of the blessings sure to come.
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