Little Gifts

The daffodils are done blooming at our house now, but before they were gone I took a picture of my neighbor’s daffodil bed as we see it from our living room window. She planted them all along the side of her house when she redid the flowerbeds quite a few years ago. Later on, before Mom died, she mentioned to me in passing when I’d complemented her on them that she’d planted those specific bulbs all along that side because Mom had once mentioned how much she liked daffodils and she knew Mom would be able to see them from her living room chair. Now, when I see her daffodils every spring, I immediately think of Mom and the quiet gift my neighbor gave her.

Mom had been in that same chair a couple years before when my neighbor’s husband fell backwards off of scaffolding, narrowly missing a cement pad and pile of lumber below. I had been at school but Mom told me later that she saw it happening and barely had the time to breathe the prayer, “Mary, Jesus, & Joseph” before he landed. She watched as family came around the corner and helped him into the truck to head for the ER. When he heard about Mom’s reaction, he said her prayer was what saved him and later sent word to her to pray again, because he had to go back up on the scaffolding to finish the job he’d started.

I guess the story doesn’t stop there, either. A year or so after that, when Mom found herself admitted into the hospital and headed to surgery for a pacemaker, one of my neighbor’s daughters called her dad at work to tell him it was his turn to pray for Grammy. This 6-and-a-half foot master mechanic stopped the meeting he was in and had everyone bow their heads.

Planting daffodils was a simple, thoughtful thing to do. No fanfare, no media hype, no acts of congress; just a quiet little deed blooming from an open heart. That’s what all those actions were. Simple choices made by one person for another that naturally rippled out and touched others as well. The little things we do really can matter quite a lot.