The photo came via a text on my phone along with a message:. “Tell Mom the daffodils have finally pushed through.”

Our mother loves to garden. She ordered the bulbs for her yard last summer, before her stroke felled her. The bulb package showed up the week after Mom’s stroke.

My sister and her family managed to get 75 bulbs in the ground before the temperatures plummeted.

You plant bulbs with hope. The bulbs look too dead to endure a harsh winter. But the vision  of the spring’s new life and colors spurred the family on.

Here in Colorado, we’ve been hammered by the lack of snow this winter. The ground is so dry that many farmers are considering parking their planters this year. The cost of buying seed and fuel may be greater than the potential harvest.

Our family has  been hammered, too, this winter. Not by lack of snow but by loss and disappointment. As I’ve mentioned before, my father died in September and my mother suffered a major stroke in October. Our winter has been consumed with therapy and fear.

For a time, we wondered if we’d lose both parents back to back. Then we wondered if Mom would regain anything stolen by the stroke.

Mom has learned to sit up again, lift herself with one arm and a grab bar, and swallow again. The therapists have her walking – stiffly, awkwardly, but one foot in front of the other.

“She’s doing great,” they tell us.

My sister’s photo of the emerging daffodils made Mom happy. “We’ll have to go see those one of these days,” she said.

When those bulbs went in the ground, we all wondered about Mom.  Would we be able to show her the new plants? Would the bulbs even grow in this drought? Would she survive the winter?

Yes, yes, and yes.

And I think those daffodils mirror our hearts as well. It’s been a long dry winter but spring’s coming.