Turning Toward the Light

For Christmas I was gifted an amaryllis bulb from a friend and for weeks now the plant has offered a new miracle every morning…in the stunning beauty of its blossoming, and in the memories and revelations it has invoked.

A Valentine’s Message

My grandmother was an avid greenthumb; her house was full of plants and flowers, and every year she raised a garden that could rival that of any Amish family.
Each year around Christmastime, my grandfather would give her an amaryllis bulb—which always looked to me like the prettier version of a turnip, but with one or two delicately green, tulipy-looking shoots sprouting from its top.
The bulb would get potted and be perched in the window by the breakfast table where its inevitable unfolding could be readily witnessed.

There, day after day, each morning while eating the grapefruit they shared the same way—a single fruit, cut in half, sprinkled lightly with sugar, and carefully sliced along the triangular-shaped membrane—my grandparents would look at the amaryllis and remark on its growth.

I remember thinking at the time how ridiculous the redundancy of this morning ritual was. But I was too young to understand the depth of what was really passing between them. I had no fluency then for the many languages love knows, most of which, I have now come to realize, live not in actual words that are spoken. For love can also be known in the space between pauses taken, and deeply felt within silences allowed, and seen in a moment illuminated by shared wonder, as when blossoms turn their open faces to the morning sun…

I am hoping this Valentine’s Day you can feel, even if only through remembrance, all the love for which there are no words.