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# Yellow Tulips
- URL: https://theunfold.ing/yellow-tulips/
- Published: 2026-07-09T20:27:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-09T20:27:56.000Z
- Description: I don't remember much from that season. Trauma has a way of stealing the details. But I remember the yellow tulips. I remember the woman who stood on my porch and silently reminded me that I wasn't alone. This is that story.
- Author: Jennie Denney
- Tags: Essays

They were yellow tulip buds.

Happy. Bright. Full of the promise of a warm spring after a brutal winter.

I opened the door as she awkwardly handed the bundle to me.

"I didn't know what to do, but I saw these and thought of you." 

The sky was blue behind her, the air warm, sweetened by the lemon blossoms. 

I felt the dam crack behind my eyes as I stood there at the door watching her shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. 

I tried not to let it break all the way open.

I was afraid it would wash away the numbness that was keeping me upright.

"You see, my oldest son..."

That's all she had to say, and I knew. I knew she knew. 

I learned the sound of the bathroom door as I lay awake each night listening for it to open and then close. Then I would start counting. One minute. Two. Three. Five. When it felt too long, I would get out of bed, open my door, and knock on hers to make sure she was still alive. 

Some nights I knocked. Some nights I listened. Some nights, I opened the door before I had time to talk myself out of it.

I don't know how many nights I lived like that. I only know that, eventually, exhaustion became easier to carry than fear...and numbness overtook them both.

When those tulips arrived, I was already flat on my back, screaming into the sky, what else you got? What else you got? 

And for the first time in what felt like a really long time...someone climbed down onto the ground with me.

"I see how dark it is here. I'm with you."

I watched those yellow tulips slowly open in their vase that week. 

Then I watched them wilt. 

Everything else is a blur. 

The flowers aren't.