Here’s what flowers and a teenage boy in super baggy pants can teach us about humanity’s survival

It’s been a bleak season, but seeing my daffodils unfurling reminded me that this is just a season.

Last spring, a teenage boy in super baggy pants stopped me while I was throwing mulch in the yard.

“I like your yard. It looks like Easter every time I walk by,” the boy of about 16 said.

His comment made my heart smile even though the yard’s beauty is not totally due to me.

I’ve planted some of my flowers and inherited the rest from my house’s previous owner, a masterful gardener.

Right now, the crocus and daffodils are starting to do their jobs. The hyacinths, tulips, peonies and so on will show off their bulbs next.

Humans planted them there and this human maintains them, but when it gets down to it, my flowers are just doing what they are supposed to do.

And that’s expressly what we all have to do.

These are frightening times. There’s no way to sugarcoat that fact.

The coronavirus has already uprooted lives and livelihoods and will continue to do so.

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We will not all live to talk about it tomorrow.

We can’t as individuals stop it, but we can do what we are supposed to do and that will make a big difference.

We can be compassionate and check in on neighbors and friends and offer support even from a distance.

We can resist the biological urge to resort to tribalism. Crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, the peonies and so on work together to make a garden look like Easter. Let’s not forget that.

We can share.

This might be the worst thing that has happened, but so was the last worst thing that happened. We got through it, or are at least trying.

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Crocus, daffodils hyacinths, tulips, the peonies and so on will unfurl next year and, God willing, humanity will be here to appreciate them.

So many of us in this town were looking forward to a good spring after the horrors of 2019 — the tornadoes, the mass shooting and the rest.

Many of us are now trying to get through to the next season.

How we behave on the journey will show the real strength of beings in a world where flowers stop a kid in his tracks to share his appreciation of beauty and color.