Buttercups

Jonquils, Daffodils — we called them “buttercups,” these joyful heralds of Spring. My earliest memory of them was not of flowers stiffly arranged in painted vases but growing wild in open fields. The field beside my grandmother ’s house was such a place. These golden trumpets crowed together and for me a favorite pastime as a child was to lie down right in the midst of these fragrant flowers—to put myself at eye level with them—inhale their fresh, earthy aroma and delight in their bright, bold colors. Throughout my life I have enjoyed other flowers but there is something about buttercups that always brings hope. Perhap this is because of an experience I remember.

My grandmother lived in a big pre- Civil War home just a short distance from our cottage on South Church Street. Every afternoon Mother would walk down the road to visit my grandmother. In Spring she would walk past the field of buttercups. As a pre-schooler she would take me with her. We would find Granny (as we called her) looking tiny in the big Lincoln bed, the same one Mother sleeps in now. Granny was dying of cancer.

One cold, damp February afternoon I went with Mother on a “granny visit”. After kissing her I went to a shelf of toys near her bedside. As was our usual pattern I picked out a toy (in this case some paperdolls) and settled down on the floor at the foot of t he bed to play. Granny and Mother conversed quietly. In the way that children have of listening to adults talk while seemingly engaged in other activities I heard my grandmother say:

“If only I can live long enough to see the buttercups bloom again–”

That sentence stuck with me all these years and every Spring I thank God for the blessing of buttercups.