Mothers

When I was a little girl getting dressed for church on Mother's Day, my mother would always come and pin a red rose on my dress. She told me that that symbolized that I had a living mother. Then she would pin a white rose on her own dress. My mother's mother had died when she was eleven years old.

Of course, I had no understanding as a child of what it would be like to grow up without a mother. It was only much later when I became a mother to two daughters of my own that I began to have some inkling of the sorrow and loneliness that my mother experienced as a child.

If you still have your mother with you on this Mother's Day, I hope that you will treasure her and that you will let her know that you do. As for me, I will wear my white rose and remember.

My mother's lilies

I'm happy to have a few plants in my garden that came from my late mother's garden and none are more precious to me than these old "ditch lilies," the original tawny orange daylilies. Every time I look at them I am reminded of my mother. They are tough plants, able to weather drought and flood and still come up blooming when spring rolls around again. Much like my mother.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!