Layla's Dark and Foreboding Weblog

When I was about 9 years old, I was playing in my front yard in early spring when I looked down and noticed a single crocus growing in the lawn. One single purple crocus. I immediately fell madly in love with this beautiful and lonely flower, and vowed to do all I could to keep it company and save it from certain demise: impatient mailmen traipsing across our lawn, surly paperboys demanding their collection money, meddling neighbors wanting to meet the new people. No, I would keep this crocus safe forever.

The next morning, before I began the walk to school, I checked on the crocus, who was lively and proud in the morning sun. Not 2 feet from my new friend grew a yellow buttercup, overnight. Could it have been there yesterday and I hadn't noticed it? No, not a chance. It was pretty and perky and yellow. Its color alone is meant to be noticed, right?

When I got home from school that day, I noticed that the crocus didn't look as lonely as the day before. It was a little straighter. A little prouder, rounder, even, like it had the puffed chest of a charlatan touting his elixir for a better life. The buttercup even looked like it was leaning closer to the crocus. I felt jealous. Of a flower.

That evening, I sat on the front stoop with my young brother, A, who was about two years old. Walking and talking a bit. Kids were playing in their yards. The older boy across the street had his hockey net set up in the road and was playing with his friends. The two sisters next door were coming out of their yard now and then, talking loudly about their made-up reason for needing to be in the front yard, so as to not let on that they were sizing up their new neighbor and her little brother.

Across the street, next to the hockey player's house, the loud Saab with no tailpipe pulled up in their driveway. Mr. D'Angelis got out of his car, dressed in his Long Island Railroad conductor’s uniform, and went to the front door. As he turned the knob, the big red Golden Retriever leapt from the door to kiss his owner hello. He then bounded across the yard and across the street to greet the two sisters from next door with slobbery licks. Mr. D'Angelis called him home, and the big red Golden Retriever ran back across our yard, then to the hockey player's yard and then on home. We didn't have a dog at this time, so the spectacle was exhilarating for us. We wanted a dog.

Afterwards, I went back to my crocus. And I looked to his other friend the buttercup. But the buttercup was gone. In its place was a smearing of yellow torn petals. The big red Golden Retriever had trampled it in his quest to greet the entire block before being put back inside. I felt terrible. Not for me, since I did in fact harbor some jealousy toward the buttercup, but for the crocus. Now the crocus would be alone again. At least after I had to go in for the night.

In the morning I came out to check on it again before going to school, and wasn't completely surprised to see it wasn't there. I was devastated, but not surprised. I think I actually cried when I saw that it was gone. I knew what happened. It certainly died of loneliness, sadness from losing its only friend.

This experience stayed with me for weeks, and in my nine year old mind, I kept looking for some deep meaning in it. Was I going to lose a friend? Was I going to die? The following spring the crocus and the buttercup came back. I was delighted, but also a year older and far wiser to the ways of the world. I went through major personal transformation in those years. It took me until very recently to understand the true lesson that I learned. And the start of spring brings me right back there each time.