Monday, March 2, 2009

Tulips are Popping Up

Well, now, here it is March already. Time seems to go faster every day. This is a month filled with family birthdays for our family.

I have some tulips that are popping up in my flower garden along with the daffodils. It let's me know that spring is on the way with all it's beauty and pleasant weather. I have been working on some family history again and came across another writing of Grandma Smarty. Today, I'll share with with you, thanks to Dinah for sending it to me a couple of years ago.

"There is one [tulip] that has been most faithful of all. I look for it each spring on the west side of the sidewalk that goes out a short ways south of the south porch. It has been there for I suppose forty years and comes up each spring and no matter how dry and unfavorable the conditions may be it never fails to put up at least a little purple blossom. I like it much not for its beautiful bloom for most times it doesn't amount to much but because it is faithful and does its best in spite of whatever may come. I have known a few people like that. The places where they found themselves weren't pleasant and the way may have been hard but they were there doing what they could with what they had. I think of my cousin Belle xxxxx who lived in Benkleman. She grew up with her dad having run off and left his family to be raised by a weak mother. She married too young and had too many kids and nevert had enough money to hardly have enough to eat. But she never complained and was such a calm fine old lady taking care of herself and others who needed care even until she was past eighty five. A fine, fine woman."

Grandma Smarty was a special person herself. She was able to see the beauty in what most people would pass by. She was also able to see the beauty in the people she knew. Grandma loved us for the beauty inside, not for how we looked or what we did, because I'm sure all of us have done things we're now ashamed of. She looked past those things and saw the goodness within. I'm sure this has had an effect on all of us who knew her and that it helped us to become good people.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The various bulbs are beginning to shoot up their leaves here on the East Coast as well. Nevertheless, we just had a BIG snow to remind us that it's still winter even though the calendar says "March."

I've been thinking about Grandma Smarty a lot lately, and how I wish I could tell her how sorry I am for all the grief and heartache I ever caused her. Oh, well, she always had a loving and forgiving heart and that's such a comfort to me now.

Mary said...

She always wrote notes of encouragement to us in birthday cards and letters. I have saved many of them in a notebook. I could never bear to throw them away. They seemed like she put a piece of herself in them.

Mary said...

I'm thinking someone should drive out there and see if that tulip is still there.