Blossoming the Cross

A kindergartner clutches a daffodil, one he and Mama had cut the day before. A brave daffodil, struggling through the winter-clutched ground, daring sun-yellow petals against ice-laced wind. So cold that wind. Cold enough to feel winter might just last forever. Always winter but never Christmas.

But the children had been told to place their frozen flowers into the wire-wrapped wood and so they donned coats and trooped into the teeth of that wind. This kindergartner didn't know why or what for. This was new, this was different. Once again the world spinning off its axis. There is change in the wind. Something is coming. A little bit scary. A little bit out of control. "Safe? ...Course he isn't safe!"

Snow falls. Blanketing the flower-decked wood in a shroud of white. Baring frozen teeth. The squeal of trying-to-catch-snow-on-the-tongue giggles piercing the solemnity of reverence.Then silence as the cross is hoisted, muscles straining, battling against frozen ground. Watching. Waiting. All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think.

A thud as the cross fits snugly into place. An intake of breath. Flowers blooming bold against a canopy of white. That which was dead alive again. Eyes dance. "There's mine!" a kindergartner declares, one hand tucked into Mama's. "The yellow one." Rebirth. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, and when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.



They say Aslan is on the move.