Spring Miracle

Philip's tulips (right) and collage (below): Our neighbor Amanda's garden; flowering white crabapple in front of J&G's restaurant, across from Elissa's apartment.

“We put them in water and they perked up!”

My daughter Elissa was talking about the tulips her grandson Philip had picked the night before (photo right).

After dinner at J&G's Restaurant, we walked over to neighbor Amanda's house to see her garden, resplendent in bright tulips and daffodils, flowering crabapple trees and forsythia bushes, and buds of many varieties pushing through the ground, responding to a few warm days, bursting or about to burst. Amanda told Philip he could pick some tulips, the ones in the back yard, not in front of the house.

Philip was thrilled. Amanda helped him pick a large red tulip, another red one, a yellow one, and a small orange tulip, the baby among the tulip family. He walked home to his Gran-E’s around the corner, where he was spending the night, proudly carrying his flowers. Counting them naming the colors. He held them as we did errands. Such simple pleasure.

“We need to put your flowers in water,” Gran E said as the day ended and night fell. "No, I don’t want to,” Philip said, clinging to his wilting but still lovely tulips.

Somehow Gran E prevailed. The miracle of flowers responding to love happened overnight. When Philip awoke in the morning, his tulips had flourished, perked up, all gently opening, glowing like sunflowers on the Ukrainian steppes. Elissa told me that Philip smiled and exclaimed when he saw them. Jumped for joy!

Funny thing, but I had dreamt about it during the night. In my dream, Elissa told Philip that a miracle would happen if he put the flowers in water. They would brighten and open up and be even more beautiful. Watch them, she said to him in the dream.

I awoke hoping Philip had indeed witnessed such a miracle. Just then Elissa called and told me about it. And he had, and we were glad.