The Daffodil
Principle
Several times my daughter had
telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils
before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour
drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next
Tuesday, " I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third
call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and
rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally
walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my
grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The
road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in
the world except you and these children that I want to see bad
enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and
said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."
"Well, you won't get me back
on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!"
I assured her. "I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage
to pick up my car." "How far will we have to
drive?"
"Just a few blocks,"
Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."
After several minutes, I had to
ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the
garage!"
"We're going to my garage
the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the
daffodils."
"Carolyn," I said
sternly, "please turn around."
"It's all right, Mother, I
promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this
experience."
After about twenty minutes, we
turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the
far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read,
"Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car and each
took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then,
we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before
me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had
taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain
peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling
patterns -- great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon
yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each
different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it
swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.
There were five acres of flowers.
"But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's
just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the
property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept
A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all
that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a
poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking"
was the headline.
The first answer was a simple
one."50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was,
"One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very
little brain." The third answer was, "Began in
1958."
There it was. The Daffodil
Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I
had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun -- one
bulb at a time -- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an
obscure mountain top.
Still, just planting one bulb at
a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman
had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created
something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and
inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden
taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is,
learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time
-- often just one baby-step at a time -- and learning to love the
doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply
tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too
will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the
world.
"It makes me sad in a
way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have
accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or
forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time'
through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to
achieve!" My daughter summed up the message of the day in her
usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.
It's so pointless to think of the
lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of
celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask,
"How can I put this to use today?" Author Unknown
Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg,
Pa.