How magnificent it is to see green shoots coming out of the ground amidst a still cold winter. And then a few weeks later - POP!- the daffodils burst open bright as the sun, as if to say, "Spring is Coming, I promise, the cold, hard times of winter are nearly over."
My friend Megan loved daffodils. That is why after she died her parents started The Daffodil Dance in Atlanta, to honor her life and raise support for Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease research, which is the disease that took her life at age 27.
That first Spring after her death Megan's parents' street was lined with hundreds of yellow daffodils - their sweet neighbors started a tradition the Fall before and planted the bulbs in her memory. How touching it must have been for her grieving parents- after that first sad winter without her - to drive home surrounded by blooming yellow daffodils on every side.
Today the daffodil dance continues in Dallas in a small way. How I love that I I think of Megan every time I pull into my driveway. And how I love the story of hope that God gives us daily with His beautiful creation, if we only take the time to look.
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Megan's mom penned a beautiful book about her journey of suffering and hope with Megan and I highly recommend it to anyone suffering from a loss or illness of a loved one. Or anyone who wants to read an amazing story of the love and faith of two godly women and their precious mother-daughter relationship. What Marcia Gaddis did for her daughter is a moving testament for all of us mothers out there.
Megan's parents came to meet Maggie, who they so diligently pray for, a few months ago. How precious a visit it was....
"Daffodils" (1804)
by William Wordsworth
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
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