Daffodils and Mayonnaise Jars

Ever since I was a little girl I have loved daffodils. They hold a very sentimental meaning to me for so many reasons. First, being a spring flower, the daffodils seasonally start to bloom right around my birthday. I can remember walking through the field across from 426 Dunkin Avenue in Bridgeport, West Virginia picking what daffodils I could to take home to my mother, excited that she would put them in a big glass mayonnaise jar in the middle of the kitchen table. I wasn't that fond of how daffodils smelled, but I loved the way they looked. Happy, bright, a small trumpet in the middle declaring "Joy to Ye People! Spring has Come!" When I moved from Bridegport to St. Marys, West Virginia, I was in the second grade and as you can imagine, not thrilled that we were moving. We were moving to a big old three story house next to the Baptist Church ... the parsonage. It was massive to an 8 year old girl. I knew no one. I had a huge bedroom all alone. I missed my best friend that I had to leave in Bridgeport, Annie Faris, and I wanted to go back.

Two days into our new life in St. Marys I was sulking in my second floor room and feeling sorry for myself when I kept hearing singing outside my window. I opened the window and propped a stick up to hold it and looked out. I hadn't realized that the house next door was about 3 feet away! I had never had a house so close to mine. The singing continued, and turned into humming. I caught a quick glimpse of white hair shuffling just under the open criss-cross window in the neighboring house. Spontaneously I shouted "Hellooo!". The humming stopped. I said "Hello over there!" Then a window opened on the other side of the criss-cross window room and a friendly elderly woman peered out and shouted back at me "Hello over THERE!" I had just met Mrs. West. We had a nice conversation from our second story windows.


The next morning on the front porch I was surprised with a lovely bunch of daffodils in a jelly jar with a simple note saying "Welcome, from Mrs. West".

Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all.

Spring after spring I watched the daffodils bloom around the churchyard, in the cemetery, in the park up the road and in the playground.

When it was time for me to go to college, I was thrilled to see the hillsides of daffodils in Philippi. On College Hill Road on the way up the hill to the college, there is a hill that blooms daffodils from top to bottom. I imagine they're out right now.


We would pick bundles of daffodils and sneak them off to our rooms to put in whatever empty jars we could find. I had never seen so many in one place.

Now in my 42nd year, I still get excited when its daffodil days. Watching my girls pick them out of the yard makes me smile, and I keep an old mayonnaise jar at the ready.