One morning, while trying to make my way to the kitchen end of the house and the driveway beyond without tripping over a cat, something outside my front door caught my eye. It was just the briefest moment of shocking pink . . . the kind that makes you back up and take a long, hard, second look. Before I proceed, you probably need to know that my yard currently resembles a jungle, but that’s by design. I love the clover and the wild violets and the yard is presently covered in both, the clover raising their tiny purple heads above the other weeds (it may not be grass, but at least it’s green), happily surrounding the violets that are quite content to nestle in their shadow. I know once it’s mowed they’ll be gone for another year, so I enjoy them until I can’t see the cats anymore once they go outside. This also means what passes for shrub beds up next to the house are equally overgrown. Yard work used to be my thing. Not so much anymore.

But as I passed by the front door—the front door that’s mostly glass and looks out on the sidewalk to nowhere and the clover covered yard—I saw it . . . and I stopped . . . and I opened the door that’s rarely ever opened and walked out onto the porch that’s bigger than any porch really ought to be. And there, very close to the steps that lead to the sidewalk to nowhere, is one lonely little azalea. It used to be much larger, but the outer branches died and some kind soul pruned it back a couple of years ago. You probably also need to know that I don’t trim very much, if anything . . . which is why you can’t get to the front door from the driveway unless you’re willing to leave the sidewalk.

But this lonely little azalea had been trimmed, the dead wood cut from it until it was half its original size. And then it had withstood the winter of 2015. The one we just had, not the one to come. Granted, compared to our friends to the North, our winter was virtually nothing, but for us and anything attempting to survive outside, it was cold enough, with snow not once but twice, enough that you could build a semi-decent snowman and indulge in snow cream. And then there was the ice, the ice that coated the world, making everything sparkly and threatening to nip every bud that dared show its tiny little face.

Yet now, in the middle of the April showers that allegedly bring May flowers (and uncontrollable hair for some of us), was this beautiful azalea. Despite the snow, despite the ice, despite my constant neglect and haphazard approach to landscaping, it had not only survived but had done so beautifully.

The strongest people I know are those who have been tested by the storm. They have withstood the snow and ice, the heartaches brought by tragedy and loss. Their smiles have more meaning, their souls more depth, their words more wisdom. In understanding they cannot avoid the pain, they have chosen to move through it and in so doing have emerged not unscathed, but beautifully scarred. And as the writers of Criminal Minds noted, through the words of Agent David Rossi, “Scars remind us of where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”

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