Where I live, the winters are long and this year it was colder than usual—even for someone like me who doesn't mind the winter. So this week, I was particularly happy to find these little crocuses cheerfully blooming in the sun. Every spring, I keep my eyes open for the crocuses in my neighbourhood that year after year, bravely bloom through the barely-thawed earth. Even if the air is still cold and the landscape is mostly grey and brown, it reminds me that the worst of the winter is behind us and ahead, are the warm, colourful days of summer.

 And interestingly enough, next winter, when that very same spot is once again frozen solid and covered in three feet of snow, and it feels as if the dark, cold days of winter will never end, those same little bulbs will still be there underneath all of that snow, waiting once again to bloom at the earliest possible opportunity. 

Every year, the crocuses remind me that there is always hope, even if we can't see it—whether it’s hope for warmth after a long, cold winter, hope for another tiny triumph in my daughter’s rehabilitation after a childhood stroke, or hope for relief from whatever else we find dark and difficult.