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Yellow Daffodils for Remembrance
Yellow is the color of remembrance. I didn’t know that, did you? Daffodils are hardy, robust, return year after year; it’s hard to keep them down, or annihilate them. They bloom in the spring, the season of hope. They are dug in in the fall, the season to remember 9-11. The hardy dug in.
In the early years of the project, towns and cities, Parks and Recreation Departments, even businesses, gave away the bulbs, encouraging participation. In New York City Burroughs, parks and community streets held clean up days to bring the community out together working to make their homes a better place, an act of rebirth in the revitalization of communities. In a way, it’s a reenactment of the aftermath of 9-11, isn’t it? Strangers in the neighborhood, coming together to work, and be united. Eventually, the goal was to plant one bulb for every NYC resident! In our little town of Cashiers, North Carolina, the Chamber of Commerce gave away bulbs. Soon the Crossroads and the Village Green were lined with daffodils. I hope, as the years come and go, that residents will remember why there are so many daffodils there.
I took some of the free bulbs to plant at my community dog park. At a nursery in Virginia, I found a surprising stone, a marker, that read In Honor of the Canine Heroes of 9-11-01. It seemed timely and appropriate. For the next sixteen springs, that stone and daffodils greeted the dogs and their people at the gate to our dog park. When we left the mountains, and the park was doomed, I brought the stone with me to Edenton. It will be featured when our home is on the Pilgrimage Home & Garden Tour in a few weeks. I’m afraid the daffodils will be finished by then, but the stone and foliage will remain. I’m going to enlist the artistic talents of a granddaughter who will be visiting me next week, to create a companion piece. I’ll share the story of the project. If it hasn’t been started here, perhaps we can!
Does your community participate in this project? I think it’s a lovely way to share that memory with future generations. They didn’t live it, but it’s terribly important that they know about it. And what community can’t use more yellow daffodils?