The Daffodils
Some places just whisper a story to me.
Elijah was a farmer’s son, third generation, with two younger brothers. His family grew up working the soil, and living around the seasons – sowing and harvesting each crop in its appointed time. Baez’s mother was a free spirit, a city girl who had drifted into a commune, and became “with child,” as her grandmother said, at Woodstock. Baez’s mother phrased it as “knocked up” and named her Baez after Joan Baez, who was pregnant when she performed at the three-day festival.
Elijah and Baez met in a local community college in 1988, where he was studying animal husbandry, and she literature. Baez fancied herself a poet, and often quoted Wordsworth. Elijah just fancied Baez. His whole world revolved around her.
They married a year later, and his dad built them a nice little home by repurposing an old school that had been around since the turn of the century, and had been sitting on an unplanted parcel of land. At first Baez was enthralled by country life. She planted an organic garden, would spend hours sitting alone composing poems while Elijah worked 10-12 hour days in the fields, and even tried her hand at embroidering, making a piece that quoted William Wordsworth, “And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.” Elijah hung it beside the mounted dish his mother had given them as a house warming gift, that read, “Kissing don’t last, but cooking do.”
Little did Elijah know it, but that dish was the first straw on the camel’s back. “But cooking do” irritated Baez; it was so…illiterate. In the fall of 91 they found out that Baez was pregnant. It was the happiest time in their life together. And then, that summer, while Elijah was working in the fields, Baez miscarried and lost the child. Had they lived closer to town…
After that her attitude towards country life, its monotony, and seclusion began to wear on Baez. Elijah was seldom home, he worked such long hours, and often he was so “plumb tucker out” that when he came in from the fields, he ate and went to bed. Only to get back up before dawn and leave again.
Elijah knew things were “outta kilter” and he tried to rekindle their love. He even planted rows of daffodils on the walkway up to the house, hoping that would make her happy. It did, briefly, but then one day he came home to an unlit, empty home. On the kitchen table was a note that simply said, “Dearest Elijah, I can’t take this life anymore. Try to be happy.”
He never was again. After the divorce Baez went back to college and ended up getting a law degree. She never spoke with him again. He never remarried - what farmer has time to date? But he kept those daffodils up. In his heart he was hoping they’d bring her home, to where her heart once danced.
Years after his death, the land lies fallow and the home is abandoned, while the children of his siblings, who have no interest in farming the land, debate selling it to a developer who thinks he can divide it up into a shopping center and apartment complexes.
Until then, every year, the daffodils return and dance in the spring breeze, waiting for Baez’s return.
Many older houses in the country have rows of daffodils planted by the owner to welcome and guide you to the front door.
A side view of the home. And everyone in the country knows that strangers and salesmen come to the front door,
but family, friends, and neighbors come ‘round back.
