Crocus 番红花

It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking¹, and I was looking out the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. My parents lived nearby, and Dad had visited us several times already.

"What are you doing out there?” I called to him.

He looked up, smiling. "I'm making you a surprise." Knowing my father, I thought it could be just about anything. A self-employed jobber²（批发商） , he was always building things out of odds³ and ends（零碎东西） . When we were kids, he once rigged up a jungle gym out of wheels and pulleys. For one of my Halloween parties, he created an electrical pumpkin⁴ and mounted, it on a broomstick. As guests came to our door, he would light the pumpkin and have it pop out in front of them from a hiding place in the bushes.

Today, however, Dad would say no more, and, caught ups in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise.

Until one raw day the following March when I glanced out the window. Dismal⁵（凄凉的） . Overcast⁶（阴暗的） . Little piles of dirty snow still stubbornly littering the lawn, Would winter ever end?

And yet...was it a mirage⁷（幻想） ? I strained to see what I thought was something pink, miraculously⁸ peeking⁹ out of a drift. And was that a dot of blue across the yard, a small note of optimism in this gloomy expanse? I grabbed my coat and headed outside for a closer look.

They were crocuses, scattered¹⁰ whimsically（古怪地） throughout the front lawn. Lavender, blue, yellow and my favorite pink-little faces bobbing in the bitter wind.

Dad. I smiled, remembering the bulbs he had secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dreariness¹¹ of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly¹² timed, more attuned¹³ to my needs? How blessed I was, not only for the flowers but for him.

My father' s crocuses bloomed each spring for the next four or five seasons, bringing that same assurance every time they arrived: Hard times almost over. Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon.

Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms. The next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses, but my life was busier than ever, and I had never been much of a gardener. I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did.

He died suddenly one October day. My family grieved deeply, leaning on our faith. I missed him terribly, though I knew he would always be a part of us.

Four years passed, and on a dismal spring afternoon I was running errands（跑腿，供差遣） and found myself feeling depressed¹⁴. You've got the winter blahs again, I told myself. You get them every year.

It was Dad ' s birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual--my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived his faith. Once I saw him give his coat to a homeless man. Often he ' d chat with strangers, and if he learned they were poor and hungry, he would invite them home for a meal. But now, in the car, I could not help wondering: How is he now? Where is he? Is there really a heaven?

I felt guilty for having doubts, but sometimes, I thought as I turned into our driveway, faith is so hard.

Suddenly I slowed, stopped and stared at the lawn. Muddy grass and small gray mounds¹⁵ of melting snow. And there, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.

How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years old, one that had not blossomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.

Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day. But it built my faith for a lifetime.