Deep snow and a gift of Spring

Another 14 inches today--can you see the tippy top of the fence along the raspberry row?

After moving snow around in the driveway, C and I trudged through the snow to the post office where a yellow card in the box directed me to the postmistress who produced a package. The return address, made me smile because I knew exactly what was inside.

It was a valentine gift of Spring--pecans, pepper jelly and daffodils from one of my all-time favorite people, my cousin Charlene.


Up until the summer of 1987, I had known her as my father's first cousin. I knew that she lived on a farm in Tennessee and her father and my grandfather were twin brothers. I knew that her father had ALS and was bed-ridden for most of her childhood and into mine. I knew that my grandfather loved her father dearly and that my father loved her like a sister.

When life moved me from Texas to her small town in Tennessee in the summer of 1987, she found a house for us to rent and became, without a doubt, the best friend that I have ever had. After 21 years, she is still my BFFR.

Every Valentine's Day, since 1993 when I moved from middle Tennessee , she has sent me a package of spring time.
It is hard to express how it feels to touch these flowers which were growing in the dirt a few days ago and picked by someone so wonderfully special to me.