A true stroy that happened to me years ago.
Across the street from my second story apartment was a field of dirt and rock. Erected in the middle of that field was an old delipidated garage. Around that old garage, wildflowers grew mostly of yellow color. They were just common flowers.
Flowers like daisies and black-eyed Susan’s, but somehow the presence of those flowers had an inexplainable way of turning that field of dirt and rock and even that old dingy looking garage into something different than what would be if those wildflowers weren’t there. Instead of emanating a feeling of despair, it emanated a feeling of gentle hope.
Life wasn’t easy. My husband and I both had crazy low paying jobs that we didn’t like. The bills seemed forever impossible to pay. Although we loved each other, we had our struggles.
Our second story apartment was small, and a bit run down with just a few windows. But one of the windows, though small and drafty overlooked that field across the street. I always kept the curtains on that little window open because I loved looking at that field so much. Right next to that window, I placed one of our old rickety chairs that I could sit in every morning with a cup of coffee, before having to face the challenges that would inevitably come that day and absorb the gentle hope that radiated from that field of yellow flowers through that little window and into me.
I remember the day everything changed … the day I closed those curtains. The hopeful glow of those yellow flowers mocked me. Just two days before, my whole life had been taken from me in a spit second as I held my lifeless baby girl in my arms laying that hospital bed. The hope I once knew faded into what seemed to be an abyss of the darkest of darkness. How dare the yellow flowers still radiate their same hideous hue! I could not bear the sight of those monstrous flowers anymore and so the curtains remained fervently closed for years. Every morning, dreading what would come that day, I would sip a cup of coffee sitting in that rickety chair by the window with the curtains closed staring into the darkness of my rundown apartment … that is until today.
I am not sure what is different about today, but somehow, after all these years, I seemed to have found enough courage to finally begin to accost the despondency of my darkened and hopeless heart. Ever so slowly I began to open the curtains, but I didn’t see what I had expected to see. There was something different about the yellow wildflowers this time. Perplexed, I found myself walking out of my apartment toward that field. When I reached the field, I kneeled down and picked one of the yellow flowers to take a closer look at it. Somehow, the color yellow was different. It had become more brilliant, richer, deeper and even more full of hope than it was before my life was shattered. I walked back inside with my flower and put it in my favorite vase and placed it on a little table right by my rickety chair next the small window. Hope was closer to me than I had known. It was just hidden by the darkness.
What a sort of strange thing hope is! For it seems to grow with sorrow. The deeper the sorrow the more brilliantly hope shines. It just takes courage to open the curtain to find it.
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