Freeze-Proof Beauty

Today I caught a flash of red in my shade garden and thought something had gotten stuck there—an abandoned cat toy, a bit of Christmas tissue paper blown from the recycle bin—but when I leaned down to look, the tight red bud of an Ice N’ Roses Hellebore was set in its nest of green leaves like a fleshy garnet. My cheeks flushed when I saw it: proof of life’s return while the light was still gray, the days short, and the temperatures below freezing. I’d call it a promissory note of spring, but that’s not what it was. It was manifest evidence that beauty does not wait for perfect conditions. It shows up on its own timetable—improbably fresh, heart-meltingly lovely, surprisingly robust.

To see it on Epiphany—the twelfth day of Christmas—was a bonus, since that’s the day Christians tell the story of three wise men from the east who followed a star to Bethlehem and found a baby underneath. That story is in the Bible, but there’s another that came later, about a poor shepherdess named Madelon who left her flock to join the wise men on their way. She didn’t even think about a present until she got there and saw the others putting their grand gifts in the manger. When the angel Gabriel found her outside, crying hot tears on the cold ground, he brushed some snow away with the side of his hand and uncovered a white hellebore, ready to burst into bloom. She had found her gift, which was not made of gold or expensive resins but of frozen earth watered by her tears. Gabriel said it took the prize.

Whatever you think of the legend, whether you ever see a hellebore or not, I wish you your own epiphany under less-than-perfect conditions. Might be a cardinal, might be a crocus, might be the buds on a crabapple tree that were set last fall and are biding their time. If you come close enough, the buds are so beautiful that they can stand on their own. All they’re waiting for is someone to see.