Blossoming Hope

“Here’s a schedule of people who will bring you dinners for the next two months,” the email read. “Receive and be strengthened.” With that note, my husband Lynn and I became care receivers, a new role that humbled us and made us feel incredibly grateful. I had been diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer just six weeks after Lynn was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

That was years ago, and I partly credit our survival to the many ways a team of faithful caregivers surrounded us, not only with comfort food, but with a solid circle of prayers and other creative ways of blessing us. Like the tulips.

One beautiful autumn morning as I neared the end of a grueling year of chemo treatments, I opened our door to find three friends with shovels and a huge pail of tulip bulbs.

“We’ve come to plant these bulbs so you will have blossoms in springtime,” they said, and then went to work. Now, every spring when I see a few surviving tulips, I’m reminded of my Johnny Appleseed friends and so many other caregivers who planted seeds of hope that continue to bless us today.