Tip-toeing through the woods stealing spring

Published 9:20 am Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By Staff
I am a thief. I have finally come to terms with it.
For years I have been in denial trying to justify my actions with all sorts of excuses, but the bottom line is this: every spring I steal trilliums from other peoples' woods. There it is, the truth is out. Please, no lectures about how a pastor's wife should behave. Believe me, I am reminded of it every time I trespass into someone's woods, tiptoe across the spongy earth of spring, and get my grubby little hands on one of nature's beauties – the trillium grandiflorum.
It all began when I was a child. Seriously. Every May Day my sister, Janet, and neighbors Tami, Janis, and Marilyn joined me for our annual frolic in the woods to collect trilliums and May apples for our May baskets. When we got back to our house we would arrange them in the construction paper cones we had decorated and leave them on the porches of all our neighbors. The tradition was to hang the baskets, ring the door bell and run to hide. We would watch the delight on all our mom's faces from behind the bushes. They would try to find out which one of us left the basket, but we never revealed our identity. (Except for the year Amy Boyle bribed us with ice cream cones.)
On May Day we would pick bushel baskets full of trilliums with no shame. That is until the year Marilyn's mom found out they were an endangered species. Can you imagine our surprise when Mrs. Martin dumped the flowers on her steps and shouted: "Trilliums are an endangered wild flower!" Needless to say, she never got another May basket from us.
Ever since then, a little guilt has trespassed into my May Day celebration. But not quite enough to keep me out of my neighbor's woods.
Before you call the authorities please allow me to clarify: I have not picked bushel baskets full of trilliums since I was a child. Not that I'm not tempted. I limit myself to one trillium per each May basket. I also have been known to rescue trilliums that were doomed to destruction. When construction began on a log cabin in the woods just down the road from us, thousands of trilliums were in danger. I managed to convince someone very close to me (his name is not mentioned here for fear of damaging his reputation) to take our children's wagon over after dark and dig up a few of those trilliums that were going to be destroyed. We actually planted them out back by our creek and over the years they have spread. Now I get to enjoy my own trilliums every Spring! (However, those are not the ones I pick.)
I tell you all that to tell you this: If you see a middle-aged woman tip-toeing in the woods on May Day she is not stealing spring. She's just trying to share it.