flowers – Tessa M. Perko's Blog

What Really Makes Me Tick (Happy)

Wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone knew what they needed to be happy? I’m retired, and I loved my teaching job; however, now that I don’t have to commute to work five days a week or grade college essays on the weekends, I just want to do things that make me happy. Here they are.

Admiring Flowers

Stopping to smell a rose may seem like an unimportant action, but, when I do it, it brings me joy. I have rose bushes in my front yard and back yard, and every morning, I wander outside to inspect every bush to see the new blooms. I sniff and stare and smile to my heart’s content.

I remember the flowers of my childhood, too. In January, crocuses poked out of the soil in the flower beds in the front yard. In February, the daffodils came. Tulips arrived in March, and Irises after them. By the time Lent was over, Easter Lilies grew like sophisticated ladies in white hats in our back yard. And in May, the meadows were carpeted with Bluebells.

For four years of my childhood, I lived in England with my family, and I was impressed by the colorful blooms of summer that thrived in the temperate climate. Rambling roses climbed up cottage walls. Cosmos waved their rainbow heads in the breezes like pretty bonnets. Hydrangeas brightened shady nooks of gardens with their puffy burst of blue and pink. I was entranced by their beauty.

At Christmas, my mother bought at least one Poinsettia to decorate the house. She bought red poinsettias, white poinsettias, and ones with white flowers with red stripes. Sometimes, she had an amaryllis bulb growing in a pot. Every day, I’d inspect it to see whether it was blooming or not. I was in more of a hurry than it was.

Making a Stew or Pot of Soup

Whenever my dad cooked, he made “water” soup. He added pieces of beef and vegetables to a pot of water to create soup. Ugh. We kids would cringe when we saw him taking out a pot. His were the worst soups I’ve ever tasted.

Maybe that’s why I love making delicious soups.

I own an old Dutch oven that is the perfect size for making one-pot meals. Some mornings even before I change out of my pajamas, I scour the refrigerator and pantry for the ingredients for a minestrone—onions, celery, carrots, zucchini, chick peas, barley, chicken broth, chopped tomatoes, oregano, salt, and pepper. Sometimes I add cooked shredded chicken. Often, I don’t.

Or I find the fixings for chicken noodle soup for a recipe from a William’s Sonoma Soups book that I bought a long time ago. While I’m chopping the carrots and celery for this soup and simmering the chicken breasts in the broth, I think back when I made this for my two children who loved it. I see their little faces above their steaming bowls, their hands holding spoons, their mouths filled with savory egg noodles.

On one European trip, I bought cookbooks in the Czech Republic and Austria, so when I want to make goulash, I search for recipes from those books. My favorite goulash is a beef, onion, and smoked paprika concoction that is topped with cornmeal dumplings. I first ate cornmeal dumplings at the restaurant at the Belvedere Palace Museum in Vienna. I’m still practicing to make mine taste as good as those were.

Reading Inside When It’s Cold Outside

To me, the essence of decadence is waking up in the morning, seeing that it’s cold and rainy outside, then reaching for a novel and reading it in bed. To take all the time in the world to read a story, then stopping and thinking about it is heaven on earth.

Reading when its cold outside reminds me of when I read as a child. I had time to sit on the floor in a corner of the house with a treasured book of fairy tales and get lost in another world. When my mother took me to the open-air market, I found the bookstore, walked to the back shelves, pulled out a tome, and read it while sitting on the floor. I was always afraid that the shop owner would find me and kick me out, but he never did.

Decorating My Home

When I was a child, we never had an expensive home, but that didn’t keep us from making it beautiful. In the spring and summer, I picked flowers in the meadows, poked them into vases and brightened every table and dresser in the house. In the fall, I cut branches of colored leaves for the mantel in the living room. For winter, my mother and I found pine cones and spray-painted them silver and gold for Christmas. We added holly and pine branch garlands in-between them.

Today, when a new season comes, I still have the irresistible urge to celebrate it with seasonal décor. Right now, I have a collection of pumpkins on my front porch accompanied by a little witch. I also have put pumpkins on the table on the back patio so we can feel the season when we go outside in the afternoons. Every time I pass these decorations, I feel like celebrating.

Writing

I wrote my first poem when I was nine years old, and I’ve been writing ever since. Sometimes, I use writing to help me sort out a problem. Currently, I’m the chair of a scholarship committee for a charitable organization. When I’m planning the meeting agendas, I write them to organize my thoughts. When I’m thinking about how to improve my author’s platform, I write my thoughts down. I write down daily affirmations and New Year’s Eve resolutions. I write every day.

Even when I’m traveling, I have a journal that I use to take notes or write a spontaneous poem. I remember one vacation that I took by myself to Boston. After I toured Paul Revere’s tomb and all of Boston’s historic sites, I drove north up the Atlantic coast. I stopped in Salem and visited another graveyard where a huge oak tree that had gotten so big over the centuries that tombstones were poking out of its bark halfway up. There was so much to write about. Finally, I stopped the car at the edge of the road near a beach. As I sat in the sand and gazed over the surging navy-blue sea, I wrote a poem about the peace that I felt.

When I visited Sorrento, Italy, I stayed in the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria. Our room had a large terrace that overlooked the Sorrento Harbor. Across the Bay of Naples with its slate-blue ripples, we could see Mount Vesuvius. Every day, I sat at the patio table on this terrace with my journal to write about the gorgeous scenery or about my excursions into the town of Sorrento or its nearby attractions. I wrote how my husband had to scrunch down going into the Blue Grotto Cave in Capri. I described the ceramic factories that we toured in Almalfi. With words, I wondered what it was like to be a citizen of Pompeii in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius spewed its lava all over the populated city.

Now that I think about it, I’ve been doing these happy things my whole life. Naturally. Now, though, I have more time to do them. What joy.

My Passion for Flowers

My first recollection of flowers was when I was ten and my family lived in the countryside in England. Across the road from our house was a forest which, that spring, was carpeted in bluebells.

I took my family’s scrub bucket into those woods, squatted down in the middle of the bluebells, and picked them. Milky juice squirted out of their stalks and trailed down my arms, making me sticky from hand to shoulder. When the bucket was full, I took it back home into the kitchen, knelt down to find my mother’s vases, and cut the bluebells’ stems to fit into them. Soon all the vases were full, but I found some quart Mason jars and filled them, too. Then, I put a vase of flowers on every bookcase and dresser in the house. My mother smiled when she saw them.

I love flowers. Flowers in my garden. Flowers in vases. The floral department in the grocery store. Flower fabrics and clothes. Flower pillows and bedspreads. Flower photographs and paintings. I just can’t get enough of them. Let me describe how my fascination with flowers has made my world beautiful.

Flowers Connect Me to My Mother

My mother loved flowers, too. Her name was Rose Marie and her favorite flower was a rose. When she lived in an assistant living facility near the end of her life, I brought her a bouquet of roses every time I visited. After my visit was over and I went back home, she would call me to tell me how the flowers were doing, when she had watered them, and where she had placed them in her studio.

But my mother had demonstrated her love for flowers all through my childhood. While we lived in England, she planted tulip and daffodil bulbs in front of our living room window. In spring, those bulbs bloomed like happy children and made our simple home bright and cheery.

When we moved back to California, my parents planted flowers all over their property. They took out the front yard grass and planted daffodils under the trees. Some of the trees were orange trees, and the combination of the yellow daffodils and the oranges was striking.

Easter lilies were planted in the back yard so that they would bloom for the Easter season, which was important to my family. Azaleas were planted in the shade, and my parents planted camelia bushes all along the patio railing. They bloomed all winter like red, pink, and white Christmas ornaments hanging amongst the glossy leaves. My mother would often comment on the camelias during our phone calls. Their buds were out. They were just about to bloom. They were in full bloom. One bush was white and the next was red. The humming birds liked them. We could have a whole conversation about her flowers.

A Flower Library

I’m an avid reader and have a library in my house. In my library, are books that I used during my teaching career such as the plays of William Shakespeare, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, poems by Robert Frost, and the novels of more contemporary authors such as Toni Morrison and Tara Westover. But I’m retired now, and I’m starting a new collection of books based on the theme of flowers.

I was inspired to start a library about flowers when I read an article about Martha Stewart’s flower library. In the magazine, I found a picture of her bright book room with books stacked on mismatched tables around the perimeter and in the middle of the room. Every wall was filled with windows above the tables, making the room fabulous for reading. The books themselves were beautiful covered with photographs of roses, azaleas, and bouquets of every kind.

Now that I’m retired, I have more time for gardening, and, this summer, I’m in the middle of re-designing my front and back yards. To do this right, I bought a book about hydrangeas so I can do what I need to do so they grow healthy and vibrant. I also bought a book about 300 varieties of tea roses since I’m going to plant six new rose bushes along my new western fence. Oh yes, I also bought a book about French flower arrangements that I have displayed in my French décor living room.

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere in the House

As soon as people step into my home, they learn how obsessed I am with flowers. In the living room, I am using three artificial flower arrangements to create a beautiful ambiance. Currently, I also have a vase filled with over a dozen red, yellow, and white roses from my own rose bushes in the back yard. I have bouquets of artificial flowers in each of the three bedrooms, flower urns in the library, and a real Christmas cactus in the family room. My bedroom walls all have pictures of flowers in them. The guest room, which also has a French theme, has a photograph of a flower vendor shop in Paris.

Flowers, Not Chocolate

Here’s a secret. I can be bribed, not with chocolates, but with flowers. When anyone gives me flowers, my heart melts like a warm candle. My husband gives me roses and sometimes other types of flowers on Christmas, my birthday, and Valentine’s Day. I love each and every bouquet as if it is the only bouquet I’ve ever received.

My daughter gives me flowers often because she loves flowers too. Her favorite flower is the Gerber Daisy. When I want to get her some blooms, I look first for those.

The most beautiful flowers I have ever received, however, were pink roses from my son. The pink was so delicate and the roses were incredible as buds and astonishing when they were fully bloomed. I took photo after photo of them, and, now, I have two photographs of these roses upstairs. My heart skips a beat whenever I see them.

I’m inspired by beauty and that’s why I love flowers. This afternoon, I plan to read more about how to perfect hydrangeas and how to promote more blooms on all my blossoming plants. You can find me sitting in my garden amongst my flowers. Where else?

The Sugar Cookie Grandma

Back in my grandmother’s day, women didn’t get much notoriety, so I decided to write a blog about my Grandma Lillian. She’s not famous, but she deserves some long-overdue attention.

Grandma Lillian was born in Winona, Minnesota on November 9, 1903. Both of her parents’ families were originally from Trhove Swiny, South Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. This town dates back to the 1200s as part of an ancient trade route. In the 1400s, King Vladislaus II, who was then King of Bohemia, authorized the town to build a market. The town’s name comes from the Czech word trh which means market. The two most popular sites in Trhove Swiny are The Most Holy Trinity Church, which replaced a Catholic pilgrimage chapel, and an iron mill called Buškův hamr.

My Grandma Lillian, however, never visited the Czech Republic. In fact, she never traveled outside the United States except for Canada. She was a short woman, less than five feet tall, and a little plump. When she first married my grandfather Leon Jr., she lived in his father’s house on an 800-acre piece of property that is now a Minnesota State Park. Later, she and her husband bought their own house in Goodview, a town next to Winona. The house was painted white and sat on a flat parcel of land covered in shamrock green grass with a large vegetable garden in the back. Her brother Leo lived next door.

Grandma Lillian had five children, including my father who was the oldest. Then came David, Mary, Gerald, and Daniel. My father moved to California with the United States Air Force which stationed him at Mather Air Force Base. Once my parents came to California, they settled down to stay.

Grandma Lillian took the train to California several times to help my parents when my mother was in the hospital having another child. During these times, I learned about who she was as a person. I watched her embroider cotton tea towels, one for every day of the week. For each day, she embroidered a kitten performing a different kitchen task with one exception. For example, on Thursday’s towel, the kitten was carrying a tea kettle to the stove. On Sunday, the kitten was not doing kitchen work since she was going to church. She taught me how to embroider, but I was too impatient to make the stitches neat.

Even though Grandma Lillian didn’t ever travel to Bohemia, she used many recipes that came from the old country. She was famous for her Refrigerator Pickles. To make these, she combined seven cups of sliced cucumbers and one sliced yellow onion with a tablespoon of salt. She let the salt leach some of the water out of the cucumbers for about an hour. For the dressing, she combined one cup of vinegar, two cups of sugar, and one teaspoon of celery seed. She poured this over the cucumbers and stored the dish in the refrigerator to use as needed. By the time her recipe reached my family, we were eating the pickles as a side salad, all in one day.

My favorite memory about Grandma Lillian was how she made sugar cookies. Maybe we didn’t have cookie cutters. Maybe we didn’t have the shapes of cookie cutters that Grandma wanted. I don’t recall, but I do remember how Grandma folded a piece of newspaper in half and used scissors to cut out a heart about the size of her hand. Then she placed the heart shape over the rolled-out cookie dough and cut the dough with a sharp knife to make heart-shaped cookies. She placed the hearts on a cookie sheet and decorated them with colorful sprinkles. When we ate them warm out of the oven, they were buttery sweet.

Grandma loved to garden both vegetables and flowers. Many days, she spent hours out in her garden weeding, pruning, harvesting and enjoying the ambiance. My father inherited her green thumb since he also cultivated a big garden every year to feed his family.

Grandma Lillian was in her garden when she died on July 16, 1991. The weather was over 100 degrees, and my cousin Karen found her late in the day. Now, she is buried next to her husband Leon and her youngest son Daniel in a country cemetery. She didn’t become a movie star, a Congress woman, a Supreme Court judge, or even a newscaster on television. Yet, she lives on in the lives of her thirty-one grandchildren and more than forty great-grandchildren. That’s an accomplishment of which I am proud.

How French Chickens Saved My Roses

A few months ago, I was touring through the gardens of Chateau Chenonceau in the Loire Valley in France with my husband. A guide had told us that the chateau used organic gardening methods for all the plants. As I walked past the gorgeous rose bushes, I wondered how the gardeners made them so healthy and beautiful. They had no black spot disease, no pests, and their blooms were vibrant and vigorous. What was their secret?

As I was about to leave the gardens, I saw a man leaning over a rose bush while sprinkling something brown around its base. Nearby, leaning up against an ancient stone urn next to his wheelbarrow, were two bags of coquilles caocao. I have had enough French training to know that the bags were full of chicken manure, and he was fertilizing the roses with them. This momentary experience transformed me from a chemical rose grower to an organic rose gardener with much better results. Here’s how I care for my roses now, and they have never been more beautiful.

Chicken Manure

I have roses under the window in my front yard, on my side yard, all along the lawn in the back, and a raised bed of my prized tea roses on the other side of the house. I’ve fertilized them, sprayed them, clipped them and I’ve always had problems. As soon as I got home from France, I bought six bags of chicken manure and spread it at the base of every rose bush. I was smelly. The mosquitoes seemed to like it, too, and they bit both me and my husband. I drank wine in my lawn chair with the smell in my nostrils. But it was worth it. Slowly, day by day, the rose bushes became stronger and their diseases cleared up. I didn’t use the fertilizer or disease control liquid at all. The chicken manure, which contains large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, revitalized my roses all by themselves. And that smell, it’s gone now.

Vinegar Water

It took several days to almost two weeks for the chicken manure nutrients to be absorbed by the rose bushes, and while that was happening, some of the rose bushes had mildew. I did some research and found another organic solution to this problem. In an empty spray bottle, I combined a quarter of a cup of apple cider vinegar and one quart of water and sprayed it on the mildewed leaves of stems. I kept this container of solution near my tea roses so it was easy to use whenever I found problems. It worked. Now, two months after first applying the chicken manure and spraying the mildewed stalks and leaves, my roses are as healthy as the roses at Chateau Chenonceau.

Bone Meal Fertilizer

I was on a roll, and I kept reading about organic gardening for roses. What I found out next is that bone meal is good for promoting blooms. Its phosphorus and calcium strengthen the plant and promote bloom growth. I applied the bone meal, and low and behold, my roses staring producing more roses that ever before. I also gave some bone meal to my African irises, and they gave me the most beautiful white, yellow and purple irises I had ever seen. I only have to apply bone meal every four months since it releases its nutrients over time.

Clipping Old Blooms

I have known that a good rose gardener should clip off the old roses in order to preserve the rose plants energy for the new blooms, but when my plants were diseased and ugly, I had little incentive to do this. In the last two months, however, I’m excited to take a pair of sharp clippers and to snip off the spent flowers, making sure that I cut the stalk just above a five-pattern of leaves. While I’m clipping the old blooms, I also clip the vibrant flowers to take into the house to enjoy in a vase on the table.

I never expected that my life would be changed by walking through an ancient garden in France. Even though my roses didn’t go to France with me, I brought them back something better than a souvenir: healthier lives.

Photo by Yuliia Dementsova on Unsplash

My Love for Ukraine

Ukraine,

I cry for you.

In war, no one wins:

The victims lose their homes, lives, daily joys, and peace,

The oppressor loses his sister’s respect and brother’s friendship.

Ukraine is every country that has ever tasted

The sweetness of freedom, the dignity of independence.

Putin is every leader who has eaten too much fast food

And developed cancer.

I’m planting sunflowers,

I’m wearing blue and yellow,

My love for Ukraine will go down in history.

My Epiphany: I’m not Retired, I’m Now a Full-time Writer

Last year, I retired from my English professor job. Throughout the years, I had always claimed to be a writer. Heaven knows, I wrote countless essays, paragraphs, articles, and lesson plans for my courses, but I also wrote poetry, articles, and short stories whenever I found free time–in-between semesters or during the summer. What I never wrote was a novel. I’ve had ideas on the table for years. Scribblings in pretty journals. Scratchings in lined notebooks. Never a complete draft or a completely formed plot waiting to be expressed.

When I retired a year ago, I looked at my retirement as a time when I would fill my days with hobbies. I even developed a list of hobbies and stuck it on my little bulletin board next to my computer in my library. That’s where I write, and one of the hobbies on the list is writing. I also wrote gardening, cooking, learning Spanish, and, of course, writing. The list was for whenever I didn’t know what to do. I would just read the list, choose an activity and proceed.

I made such glorious dinners for my husband and me the first six months of my retirement: chicken and shrimp gumbo, mushroom risotto, marinated leg of lamb, and grilled flat iron steak. I created recipes for healthy versions of pumpkin bread and blueberry breakfast bars. I experimented with turmeric and cinnamon in oatmeal and developed personal breakfast egg sandwiches with tortillas and flat breads. I filled my recipe blog with over a hundred recipes and attracted followers from all over the globe. My culinary prowess was astounding until I decided that eating out looked like a lot less work.

By summer, my garden was cleaned of weeds, pruned, fertilized, swept, and raked. The flowers grew like happy children and the fruit trees hung heavy with lemons, blood oranges, and figs. My pots of herbs provided me with lush clippings of thyme, parsley, mint, chives, lavendar, oregano, and basil. By the time fall came, I had done such a remarkable job at sprucing up the front and back yards that there was little else to do except to sit outside and enjoy my beautiful environment.

I started studying Spanish, but in the summer, I started taking classes every Wednesday at a local adult education school. Now, after a whole year of practice, I’m conversing with my classmates in conversations that span paragraphs.

The most difficult activity that I started, however, was to write a novel. I now felt that I had an overall plot in mind. I didn’t have all the pieces, but I was just going to start and see what happens. To ward away writer’s block, I decided not to make any rules or promises. I would write a novel even if I never published it. I would write even when I didn’t know what to say. I would write even when the words came out stilted and awkward. Revision is so much easier than a first draft anyway.

What’s funny is that I’ve just had an epiphany after being retired for a year. Cooking is not that important to me. Gardening is fine, but my little yard will not require much of my time to keep up. Besides, Alfred comes once a week to cut the grass and clean up the leaves.

Spanish is so much fun, but I’ve found that writing is really where my passion lies.

The other day, Valarie from the Alamo Women’s Club called me to ask if I would run for an office for next year. I joined the club last year to help them raise money for scholarships for college students, and I’ve done that. But run for an office?

No. If I became an officer, I wouldn’t have enough time for writing.

I need time to stir up ideas, time to catch up on sleep when I’ve gotten up at 2:00 in the morning to write, time to outline scenes, and lots and lots of time to write.

Next time someone asks me what I do, I’m not going to say I’m retired. They’ll think I have time to fill.

My time is full–of writing.

The Yellow Rose

Friday was the last day of class, and Profesora Casti lead her students to Almagro, the part of Buenos Aires known for its flower vendors. First, the group wandered among the flower stalls on Acuňa de Figueroa where baskets of roses filled the air with intense fragrances. Leonie bent over the bunches to breathe in their perfume, and she took turns saying their names out loud with her classmates. They chatted with the vendors who told them where they grew their flowers and how they worked from early in the morning until late at night planting seeds, hand-watering, and pruning in order to produce the most beautiful blooms.

The vendors chatted about Mother’s Day, weddings, and baptisms for which they sold the most flowers. Some stayed open 24 hours a day. The best time to buy flowers, they said, was late at night or early in the morning. These really were the most romantic times of the day anyway.

The class meandered to Calle Sarmiento where even more vendors had their shops. One shop, filled with tuberose and jasmine, perfumed the air outside its door with heady floral fragrances. Inside, the vendor was wrapping flower bouquets in cellophane paper for a woman and her two daughters.

Leonie wandered away from the group to admire the lilies of another vendor. While she was reaching out to touch a petal, a woman dressed in a green apron came out to greet her.

“Your lilies are gorgeous,” exclaimed Leonie.

“Thank you. My grandfather used to sell flowers on the streets of Buenos Aires. My father sold flowers in the old market in stall 8, and, now, I rent this shop here to continue our family tradition.”

Leonie moved under the shade of the willow tree that grew right in front of the storefront. “I love flowers,” she said.

“I love flowers, too,” replied the vendor. “I’ll sell them until I’m old and frail.”

Leonie paused in thought, running the woman’s response through her mind. Forever was a long time to do just one thing. Leonie didn’t know that she would ever find something that she wanted to do for so long. The woman in the green apron smiled at her, her face flushed with the essence of intense happiness, her eyes like shining opals.

“So,” Leonie asked, “You don’t ever wish that you could do anything else?”

The woman smoothed down the front of her green apron with hands crusted with dirt, chapped from years of digging and planting. “No, never. I never wish to do anything else. Each day in my flower shop I get to express my creativity, and that gives me intense joy. Besides, I know that I like to be around beautiful things, and what could be more beautiful than a shop full of flowers.”

“You seem so content.”

“You see this willow tree that’s giving you shade? A willow tree symbolizes fulfilling wishes of the heart. It also symbolizes inner vision. I’m lucky to know what fulfills my life. That knowledge is my inner wisdom.”

The vendor showed Leonie around her tiny shop, identifying the names of all the flowers and inviting her to smell their fragrances. Leonie told the vendor that she was about to take a trip to search for her life’s purpose. As the woman listened to her story, her eyes glistened and a whisper of a smile set upon her lips.

Before Leonie left, the woman held out a yellow rose. “This rose symbolizes our new friendship,” she said. “Friends are one of the most precious treasures of your life. From now one, you and I are lifelong friends. I wish you success on your trip and hope that you find your version of life fulfillment.

That night, just before Leonie went to bed, she sat at her desk to write in her journal. I know what fulfills me, she wrote. After setting down her pen, she felt anxious. But I don’t know what fulfills me, she worried. I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don’t know what makes me happy day after day after day.

Leonie looked at the yellow rose that the flower vendor had given her. Its yellow petals brightened up the shadows of her room. She remembered how gently the woman had picked up each flower and described its characteristics, moving among her flowers with grace, touching each blossom with respect and admiration; her movements were filled with love.

Now Leonie knew. The woman had been a messenger from her own soul to teach her how to find her own purpose. Love was an integral part of finding fulfillment. When she found out what she loved, she would find her contentment.

Leonie touched the yellow rose, and her heart filled with joy when she remembered that the woman promised that they would be friends for life. Friendship, she thought. I have love already.

Wisdom of the Trees: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Willow

Friday was the last day of class, and Profesora Casti lead her students to Almagro, the part of the city known for its flower vendors. First, the group wandered among the flower stalls on Acuňa de Figueroa where baskets of roses filled the air with intense fragrances. Leonie bent over the bunches to breathe in their perfume, and she took turns saying their names out loud with her classmates. They chatted with the vendors who told them where they grew their flowers and how they worked from early in the morning until late at night planting seeds, hand-watering, and pruning in order to produce the most beautiful flowers.

The vendors smiled when they talked about Mother’s Day, weddings, and baptisms for which they sold the most flowers. Some vendors stayed open 24 hours a day. The best time to buy flowers—late at night or early in the morning.

Then, the class meandered to Calle Sarmiento where even more vendors had their shops. One shop was filled with tuberose and jasmine, which filled the shop and the air outside its door with heady perfume. Inside, the vendor was busy wrapping flower bouquets in cellophane paper for a woman and her two daughters.

Leonie wandered away from the group to admire the lilies of another vendor. While she was reaching out to touch a petal, a woman dressed in a green apron came out to greet her.

“Your lilies are gorgeous,” exclaimed Leonie.

Leonie moved under the shade of the willow tree that grew right in front of the storefront. “I love flowers,” she said.

“I love flowers, too,” replied the vendor. “I’m sure I’ll sell flowers until I’m old and frail.”

“So,” Leonie asked, “You don’t ever wish that you could do anything else?”

The woman smoothed down the front of her green apron with hands that were crusted with dirt and chapped from years of working with plants. “No, I never wish to do anything else,” she finally said. “I feel that each day in my flower shop is another day where I get to express my creativity, and doing that gives me intense joy. Besides, I know that I like to be around beautiful things, and what could be more beautiful than a shop full of flowers.”

“You seem so contented,” said Leonie.

Before Leonie left, she held out a yellow rose. “This rose symbolizes our new friendship,” she said. “Friends are one of the most precious treasures of your life. From now one, you and I are lifelong friends. I wish you success on your trip and hope that you find your version of life fulfillment.

As she sat, she thought about the vendor in the green apron and how she had found fulfillment. She remembered how gently the woman had picked up each flower and described its characteristics. She had moved among her flowers with grace, touching each blossom with respect and admiration; her movements were filled with love.

An Old Rose

She was worried about her mother who seemed to struggle to stay present, something pulling her focus away or inward. Some days she sat in the arm chair by the window, staring straight ahead, her gray-blue eyes lost in deep thoughts.

When Sestina tried to talk to her, her mother struggled to respond. “Wait a minute,” she would say, then, with a determined set to her mouth, she’d squeeze her eyes shut for a brief moment, open them wide, and glare at Sestina while she slowly made a lucid response.

Her mother woke up early every morning, took a spit-bath at the sink in her bathroom, put on her clothes, and combed her golden white curls until she looked neat and ready for an outing. After breakfast—not a big one mind you—just a piece of bacon and half a piece of toast with butter and strawberry jam—she sat down in the chair by the window and disappeared into her private thoughts. Her breathing was labored, and she raised her shoulders every time she inhaled, her chest rising slowly, and she exhaled by opening her mouth and releasing a small burst of air.

On Wednesday, while her mother was sitting in her arm chair, Sestina went out to prune the old roses off the rose bushes. She knew her mother not only loved flowers, but she loved roses most of all, and Sestina wanted the roses to look perfect when her mother looked out the window. Eight tea rose bushes grew in the redwood planter, a raised bed so that the roses bloomed at the same height as the window. The planter was about six feet from the window so when her mother looked out, she could see the stems wave gently in the breeze and glow in the sun.

The yellow rose bush was the heartiest with big blossoms that bloomed like cabbages. One bush grew lavender roses, medium in size with delicate petals and a hue that took Sestina’s breath away. Four of the bushes bloomed with various versions of red flowers, each a unique shade of red and shaped petals. The two white bushes bloomed with the most flowers, always producing plenty of blossoms so that Sestina could cut some and bring them in the house.

Sestina held the kitchen shears in her right hand and pulled back a single stem from a rose bush, looking for the perfect compound leaf of five leaflets so she could prune the dead rose at just the right angle and place to encourage more growth.

As she made the cut, the daylight intensified into a blaze of light all around her. Insects’ voices grew loud into a hum like a Gregorian chant, and she heard the wind rush under the wings of a swallowtail butterfly who hovered over a rosebush nearby. The butterfly glided toward her, waved its wings close to her nose, and she thought that she heard it whisper, it’s time for her, time for her. Its black face smiled, and its eyes looked deep into hers, speaking wordlessly of love. She heard the breath of the breeze travel through the petals of each rose, and the scissors snapped the rose’s stem like a clap of thunder. She heard the leaves of the lemon tree give birth to new cells and buds of fruit. Then, suddenly, the breaths of the insects and flying creatures, echoes of the growing plants, and pneuma of the wind were silent, and the garden was still.

When Sestina got back to the cottage, she found that her mother had died. Her face was turned toward the open window and her hands were folded over each other like a final prayer.

Child of Light

That child of mine.

She was like the black sheep of the family, but that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with her. On the contrary. Ever since she was a little girl, she walked like she was floating on air—her feet swishing out from beneath her, her body gliding like a spirit, her head held up and her eyes cast high like she was watching a movie in the sky.

Little Beth had a heart-shaped face, her blue eyes spaced perfectly apart and framed with blonde eyebrows, her pale rosy cheeks glowing like pink pearls, her plump cherub mouth, and soft chin. But she was a shy creature and shunned the limelight, so most people didn’t notice her as she peeked into the room around a wall, hid in a corner on a stool, or swung on the swing outside, alone, when the rest of the kids were in the house.

After Beth turned seven and received her Holy Communion, I walked up behind her to Communion at one Sunday Mass. When Beth reached the priest, his eyes opened wide as he looked into her face, his hand paused with the wafer above the chalice. After a frozen moment in time, he said, “The face of God.”

What did he mean?

My daughter stood there with her hands joined together, her fingers pointing to the ceiling like dove wings. Finally, the priest fluttered his eyes, seeming to compose himself and said, “The body of Christ.”

“Amen,” said Beth, her voice rising like a musical whisper. She stuck out her tongue and the priest placed the wafer there, then she circled around so I could see her.

And then I knew. A spotlight from the ceiling lit up her face, and I saw a glow in her eyes like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rain, radiant globes of love. A warmth filled my body as she passed me, and I knew from then on that I was extraordinarily blessed to have her in my life.

The priest’s eyes followed her as she left, and, because he was preoccupied, I also turned around and watched her glide down the aisle like a sail on the breeze. Quickly, I faced the altar again, but still had to wait for him to recover and remember that more people waited in line for Holy Communion.

***

My husband and I asked Beth to be the executor of our will. We asked her because she studied finances in college and we thought she’d be qualified to deal with the mechanics of disbursing our assets.

Peter died young so he wasn’t around when I started to go blind and I couldn’t write checks, cook on the stove, or drive my car anymore.

Beth told me that it was time that she took care of me. She helped me move into an assisted living place where three of my friends already lived. She helped me sort through the sixty years of belongings in my house, found charities to pick up unwanted furniture, hired a gardener to keep the lawn cut until the house could be sold, worked with my realtor, accepted a great offer on the house, and filled my bank account with the money.

“You have enough money to live for 35 more years,” she told me. “You saved and scrimped, and now, I’m going to make sure you are treated like a queen.”

I couldn’t see very well, but Beth knew that I could still smell the roses, so every time she came to visit, she brought a dozen roses, a chrysanthemum plant, Easter lilies, Gerber daisies, or an African violet to put on my windowsill.

I died on a December morning instead of a January afternoon because Beth was beside me in the hospital, making sure that the medical professionals didn’t exceed their zeal in pointlessly extending my life with hoses down my throat, catheters in my neck, and countless blood transfusions.

She ordered a giant spray of red roses to cover my coffin at the viewing and to decorate my grave after I was buried. Red roses signify eternal love.

That child of light of mine.

The Imagination Grandpa Story 3: The Multiplication Staircase

Grandpa walked into Rosie’s hospital room with a handful of daisies.

“I brought you some flowers today, Rosie,” he said. He grabbed one of Rosie’s tall water cups from her side table and put the flowers right into the water left in the cup.

Rosie smiled. She was so happy to talk to someone who wasn’t a nurse or a doctor.

“I used my imagination this morning to make up a new story for you,” said Grandpa.

“I’m ready to hear it!” replied Rosie.

So Grandpa began.

The Multiplication Staircase

Rosie lived in a house that was older than her grandmother. Her family’s Berkeley home was a cottage really, a tiny home with a brick staircase leading up from the street. On both sides of the stairs, hydrangeas grew in the spring and summer under the shade of the ancient redwood trees that stood like giant sentinels on each side of the steps.

Every front yard on Rosie’s street had one or two coastal redwood trees, natives that had been planted when the houses were built in the early 1900’s. None of the houses matched, but each of them looked cozy with their open front porches; low-pitched gable roofs; and earth-tone sidings of wood, stone, or brick. The street was a tidy three-block stretch of narrow sidewalks, and, on the east side, a 43-step stone staircase descended to Euclid Street where, her mother told her, a street car once stopped to take passengers to San Francisco.

Rosie was born on this street–Hawthorne Terrace, and had spent her eight years of life walking around all the winding streets and staircases with her mother. Now, she was in third grade, and every day when she walked from school to home, she paused on Buena Vista Way, a hilly street, where she could see a staggering view of the San Francisco Bay—Oakland, the Bay Bridge, San Francisco’s ever-changing skyline, the small and big islands in the Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

But today, when she reached the section of Buena Vista where she could get the best view, she was lost in thought. Today, Rosie had failed her math test.

Failed.

She just couldn’t memorize her multiplication tables. The numbers got all jumbled up inside her head, and when she sat at her desk staring at the test, the numbers filled her mind with fear and confusion.

Rosie turned right on Euclid while a tear dropped onto her cheek. She wiped it off quickly with her fingers and took a sharp left to ascend the 43 steps to Hawthorne Terrace. Rosie grabbed the black wrought-iron bannister and pulled each foot up the cement stairs, one by one. Usually, she counted the stairs to make the trek easier, but, today, she thought about how she had to tell her mother that she had failed her test.

Rosie slipped on one of the stairs, her body twisting around the arm that held onto the bannister, like a flag being whipped by a cruel wind around a flag pole. She rammed into the bannister as she fell, hitting her hip hard on the vertical bars. She let go of the bannister and plopped onto a cement stair, her legs crossed beneath her.

How did Mom climb these stairs without falling when she walked to the store or caught the bus on Euclid Way? Every day that Rosie had to climb them, she ran out of breath before she reached the top and, often, she fell and scraped a knee or grazed her hands.

Mom was snipping the hydrangeas in the front yard when Rosie finally reached home. “Hey, buddy, how ya doin’?” Mom said, standing up from her garden stool, her hands clutching her shears. A pail of old blossoms stood next to her stool. The hydrangea bushes were bursting with vibrant pink blossoms behind her—each flower bursting like a ballerina’s dancing tutu on a crowded stage of dancers.

Rosie looked down at her shoes, one of which was untied and dragging behind her.

“What’s up?” Mom laid her shears on the stool, stepped over to the stairs where Rosie was standing, and put her arms around her. “Did something happen at school today?” she asked, lines furrowing her brow.

“Well, you’re going to be disappointed,” Rosie said, staring but not seeing anything.

“You must tell me anyway,” Mom said. “Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

Finally, Rosie sat down on the brick steps next to Mom and told her about the test. “I just can’t remember them,” she said, wringing her hands in her lap. “Not only that, when I was climbing the stairs today, I fell and hurt my hip, bloodied my leg, and scratched my arm.” Rosie rubbed her hip and showed her mother her injuries.

“Hmm,” said her mother. “We’ll have to think about how to solve your problem, and I believe I have an idea. Let’s first have a snack and rest, then, we’ll figure this out.”

Rosie and her mom ate slices of apples and cheese while they sat on the front porch watching the bees flitting among the hydrangeas. Rosie told Mom about how she had painted a pink hydrangea with dots of watercolor paint during art time. “I can’t wait until you see it, Mom,” Rosie said, her face lighting up as she spoke. “I think it’s really good. After I used pink dots to make the flower, I used a leaf coated with bright green paint as a press to make the flower’s leaves.”

Her mom put her arm around her. “I can’t wait to see it. Maybe we’ll have to frame it when you bring it home. Well, it’s time for your math lesson,” she said. “Let’s take a walk.”

“What?” Rosie looked up at her mother with a question on her face.

Rosie’s mom stood up and reached for Rosie’s hand. She pulled Rosie to her feet and they walked down the brick stairs together.

“Where are we going, and what does a walk have to do with math?”

“You’ll see,” said Rosie’s mother. When they reached the narrow street sidewalk, they turned left and walked north where another set of stairs on the street rose up to Scenic Avenue. This staircase was made out of thick eight-foot wide old railroad tie planks, each dark step set into the hill and secured with large, iron bolts. The bannister was built out of redwood posts with a diagonal lattice in-between.

Rosie’s mother sat down on the bottom step and gestured for Rosie to sit down next to her.

“Aren’t we going to climb the stairs?” Rosie asked, rubbing her forehead with the back of her right hand.

“We will,” said her mother. “When you’re ready.”

Rosie sat down.

“Multiplication tables are like addition which repeats itself,” said Rosie’s mom. “We’re going to practice the two-times-table while sitting on this step.”

Rosie looked up at her mother out of the corner of one eye. “Hmmp!” she said.

“Two times one is just a single two. Two times two is two 2s. If I hold up two 2s with my fingers and count them—one, two, three, four, I find out that I’m just adding two—two times.”

“That makes sense,” said Rosie. She nodded her head and counted her mother’s fingers.

“If I add another two, then I have four plus six,” said her mother.

“And another two is eight. Another two is ten. Six twos is twelve! This is easy,” said Rosie.

Rosie and her mother sat on the bottom step while Rosie figured out how to multiply two from one to twelve. Her mother tested her several times and soon, she wasn’t making any mistakes.

“Time to move,” said Rosie’s mother. She inched herself up to the next big step. While Rosie and her mother sat on the second step, Rosie practiced the three times table. She used her fingers at the beginning, but pretty soon she was seeing the number three multiply in her head and she soon memorized all the threes up to twelve.

“Let’s go up,” said Mom, scooting up one more stair.

Rosie memorized the four times table in less time than she had memorized the three times table. The breeze felt good on her face and the velvety, seashell-shaped gardenias blooming on the bushes nearby filled the air with a heavy perfume.

“One more up,” said Mom, lifting herself with her arms to the next step.

First, Rosie’s mom counted in fives, “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45. Can you do that?” She asked Rosie.

“I don’t know,” said Rosie, but she tried anyway. “5, 10, 15,” counted Rosie all the way up to 60.

“You just gave me the answers to all the five-time tables,” said Rosie’s mom.

Rosie’s eyes opened wide. She started with five times two and the rest were easy. Before her mom could even move, Rosie rolled herself up to the next step.

Rosie worked hard memorizing the six-, seven-, eight-, nine-, and ten-times tables. Each time she completely memorized a number’s multiplication table, Rosie and her mom moved up another step. After ten, they practiced the elevens. After the hard elevens, they practiced the twelves.

By the time Rosie had memorized from the twos to the twelves, Rosie’s stomach was growling. It was almost dinner time.

“The final challenge,” said Rosie’s mom, rising to the next step. Rosie followed her.

On each step, Rosie’s mom tested her with a time table from two to twelve. Each time Rosie got the right answer, until, just before the top of the stairs, she got the answer wrong for 11 times 11.

Rosie’s mom wasn’t worried at all. She just worked with Rosie on the same step while Rosie reviewed all the answers for the 11 times table. Then, Rosie’s mom tested her again, “What’s 11 times 11?” she asked.

“121!” shouted Rosie, clapping her hands together and raising them above her head like a champion.

“Up to the last stair!” said her mom. “You’ve won the championship of the Staircase Multiplication Tables!” she said, clapping wildly.

Rosie shook her head in disbelief. Just a few hours ago, she had been crying about failing her math test, and, now, she knew she’d never fail a multiplication test again.

“How’d I do that, Mom?”

“You just climbed one step at a time until you were ready for the next one,” said Rosie’s mom.

Rosie looked up at the cloudless, azure blue sky that rose upward into forever and ever. She imagined all kinds of staircases up there: wooden, cement, tile, and marble stairs; ascending and descending stairs; stairs with flowers growing through their cracks; stairs in the rain; stairs with tears of joy and sadness; and stairs full of families and friends.

Rosie wrinkled her brow and stared down the stairs for a minute, reaching out for her mother’s hand. She knew that she would always have to climb staircases, but, now she knew how—one step at a time.

“Wow,” said Rosie, looking up from her bed at Grandpa who was now sitting in a chair beside her bed. “I need to learn my multiplication tables, too.”

“You won’t have any trouble at all,” said Grandpa. My imagination just showed you the best way to learn them.”

Grandpa put on his beret, stood up from his seat, and bent over to kiss Rosie on her forehead.

“Your imagination is a genius!” said Rosie, her eyes glistening like diamonds.

Rosie’s Blooms

My mother’s name was Rose Marie—most appropriate for when she attended church, sitting at the end of the third row, her mouth pursed into a straight line and her eyes staring obediently at the altar. Yet, one of her male friends called her “Rosie,” which, most of the time, suited her better. She was feisty, knew how to get you to do what she wanted, and a woman with the most interesting hobbies. One of her favorite hobbies was her appreciation of flowers.

It’s not surprising, then, that I’ve loved flowers since I was a little girl. When I was four years old, playing house with my younger brother, my mother grew calla lilies in a corner of the back yard. I admired heir smooth, white bell-shaped flowers and bright, yellow pistils, and my mother called them “resurrection” flowers because they bloomed around Easter time when Jesus rises from the dead.

My mother cut the lilies and took them indoors to decorate our dining room table. I loved their intoxicating scent–a comforting aroma of clover mixed with a lemony fragrance. Their creamy-textured petals exuded luxury, and they lasted longer than most other cut flowers.

When we lived in Air Force base housing for four years in England, my mother planted bulbs in the rectangular planting beds under the windows in the front yard. After the snow melted in late January, daffodils poked their green shoots out of the brown soil. Day by day, I watched them grow bigger and taller. The flower knobs soon formed, and, slowly, pastel yellow flowers peeked out from the green stalks until one day they brightened our simple front yard with happy yellow fringed trumpets.

After the daffodils lost their blaze, the tulips came up behind them like copycats—rising like slender dolls out of the earth until, in a few weeks, their red cups of petals swayed in the light breezes of March. My mother told me to never pick a tulip because they represented perfect love, and she wanted them to bloom for as long as possible to bring good luck to our home. The variety of tulips that she grew were just right—not too showy, not too dramatic, not overly romantic. When they were blooming, our front yard felt comfortable and stable.

Across the street from this house on Shepherd’s Way was a forest where bluebells bloomed in mass profusion every April and May. English bluebells are associated with fairies, those miniature creatures that cause mischief for humans. I had a wistful imagination, and I spent hours walking amongst these bluebells with their sticky stems, watching for fairies and feeling grateful for the experience of being lost in a sea of blossoms.

My mother let me take a bucket out to the forest and fill it full of bluebells. I brought them home and arranged them in as many vases I could find, and when the vases were full, I used Mason jars for the rest of the flowers. I placed vases and jars full of the humble bluebells on bookcases, tables, dressers, and night stands, and my mother’s blue eyes lit up when she saw them.

My high school years were dominated by carnations. Homecomings, proms, dances, and balls called for corsages, and corsages always came as carnations. After the dances, I saved each corsage by sticking its stem into a tiny vase of water. Later, I dried it out on a saucer on my dresser, and, often, lifted it to my nose to inhale its floral and peppery scent. My mother didn’t like them because their scent reminded her of funerals and sadness.

When I was seventeen, my mother and I visited The Berkeley Rose Garden, a colorful display built into the hills of Berkeley comprised of hundreds of varieties of roses and thousands of individual rose bushes. The rose beds were terraced on the hills into the shape of an amphitheater and separated by flagstone paths.

My mother taught me the differences between polyantha roses, floribunda roses, and tea roses, and she explained how new roses were developed by cross-breeding every year. I liked the polyantha buses for their smaller heights and tightly packed blooms. I liked the floribunda bushes for their profusion of blossoms on branching stems, especially the varieties that produced variegated blooms like “purple tiger”—roses with streaks of purple, lavender, and white in each flower. These showy bushes had other dramatic names, too, like Celestial Night, Scentimental, Sweet Madame Blue, and Forever Amber.

Most of all, I adored the tea roses—their thick stems punctuated by large thorns and leaves that grew in patterns of five, with the stems ending in large graceful blooms of circling petals. The names for these sophisticated blooms were grandiose—Double Delight, Mister Lincoln, Chantilly Cream, Love Song, and Oympiad.

Arbors held the climbing roses like the orange Top of the World, the pink Pearly Gates, and the lavender Long Song varieties. Shrub roses and tree roses filled in every nook and cranny so that the whole garden produced a cacophony of colors for our eyes.

Together, we read the names of as many varieties as we could, pausing at the ones that were the most fragrant or dazzling. I nestled my nose into the blooms as deep as I dared, trying to memorize the smells forever. Never before had I been in the midst of such splendor, unrivaled beauty, and mesmerizing fragrances.

According to Mother, each color of rose had its own meaning and the number of roses given has a significance as well. Yellow roses are for friendship and red roses show love. Six roses means a growing affection and a dozen roses demonstrates complete love.

The Berkeley Rose Garden also possessed an incomparable backdrop for our mother-daughter conversation. As we walked together between the rows, we wondered at the vast view of the San Francisco Bay where the Golden Gate Bridge spread across the Bay’s exit like the arms of a graceful goddess. The water changed from denim to indigo to periwinkle to cerulean to navy to slate depending on how the surrounding hills cast their shadows, the currents massaged its surface, and the sun penetrated into the prisms of the ocean’s molecules.

Back at home, around the perimeter of my mother’s Sacramento patio grew dozens of camellia bushes under the shade of a giant mulberry tree. From November to April, these glossy green overgrown bushes produced hundreds of curly, pink blossoms. Mother told her children that camellias mean “young sons and daughters,” which seemed so fitting for my mother’s house since she had ten children who were easily outnumbered by the profusions of camellias in her garden.

When my mother moved into an assisted living apartment, she made sure that she had a vase in her cupboard for flowers. This vase was about 8 inches high and made out of white milk glass; any type of flower would look beautiful in it.

She had developed macular degeneration in both eyes, so she couldn’t read or, sometimes, even find the food on her dinner plate; she could, however, always sense when you held a bouquet of flowers in your hands to give her. A smile that matched the petals of a pink rose would light up her face as she took them from you.

She asked you to put them in her vase or find a place for them on her desk or window sill. Every few days, she called and told you how they looked or smelled, or how many blooms were still perky or drooping, until one day, she called and told you that she was cleaning out the vase. I gave her lilies at Easter, red roses during the summer, chrysanthemums during the fall, and a poinsettia at Christmastime. Her favorite were always the roses because, after all, she was named after them.

I ordered the flowers for my mother’s casket when she died. The funeral representative recommended a spray of red roses and red carnations, but I knew better. Never would I allow carnations to come near my dear mom. I ordered the largest spray of red roses I could because I knew that nothing less would make her happier.

The officiate at the gravesite told us that red roses were such an appropriate choice. “Red roses symbolize eternal love,” he said. We placed our spray of eternal love over her gravesite after the service, and their blooms thrived for weeks in the chilly California air of December and January.

Two months later, my husband bought me a dozen deep red roses for Valentine’s Day. I carefully extracted them, one by one, from the brown wrapping paper, snipped each stem with a pair of sharp pruning scissors by about one inch, and arranged them in a tall, clear crystal vase filled with fresh water and rose food. Then, I ceremoniously placed the vase of love on the coffee table in the living room—a place visible from most places in our house during the day.

One day, as he sat in an arm chair in front of these red roses, he told me how wonderful he felt looking at their beauty. “I’ve never thought about how beautiful flowers looked before,” he said, with joy filling his eyes. “I want to sit here forever.”

I realized then, that my mother’s appreciation of flowers was so strong that its influence had passed from her to me, and through me, to my husband. My love for flowers also positively influences my son, my daughter, my friends, and even people I don’t know with the optimistic power of beauty.

My mother—my Rosie knew that the delicate blooms of flowers—so ethereal in their form and beauty—are most extraordinary at communicating the powerful, yet intangible nature of love.

Bluebells

When my mother was rested and happy, her eyes were the color of bluebells. During late March in England, bluebells carpeted the forest and unfarmed hillsides. Each blossom was a bell, a delicate invested cup the color of a late summer sky, rolling over acres of mature cornfields. A sky on a day after the rains have stopped, unadorned and simple in beauty. Their petals are the color of periwinkle, like cold water lapping over a pool of shallow rocks beside a shore of snow. The blue of smooth silk dresses and spring tablecloths. In full bloom, these blue cups tilt toward the sky hiding the earth with a shimmer of sapphire sheen.

When I was eleven, I stood at the edge of the bluebell meadows, feasting on their color. Running back to the house, I grabbed the bucket used for scrubbing to carry the bluebells that I wanted to take home.

My mother’s home was lacking in softness; beauty took a back seat to the basic necessities involved in caring for her ten children.

Then, in my mother’s life, the day included no time for picking and arranging flowers. She woke up children, fried bacon and eggs, supervised the wearing of school uniforms, matching socks, coats, and hats. In the mornings, she gathered piles of laundry, washed it, ironed shirts, smoothed tablecloths, swept floors, and made beds. Dinner was such a tremendous feat to accomplish that its beginnings were initiated right after breakfast. My mother’s daily crowning achievement was sending her children to school with clean hands and clothes and feeding them a hearty dinner each night.

The bluebells started at the edge of the trees. As I entered the woods, my legs became tangled in the cluster of their stalks. Crouching into the sea of blue, I found the base of each flower, gently bent its stalk, and twisted it loose. Milky nectar oozed over my fingers and down my forearms like pancake syrup, sticky and viscous. I held the flowers close to my face to inspect the little bells as they shook in the breeze like bells around the necks of cows walking through a pasture. Then, carefully to prevent crushing them, I placed each long stem into the bucket so the blossoms poked out of the top.

On the way to a full bucket, I examined the hairy moss on the barks of trees and the other gifts that the woods offered. In-between picking the bluebells, I cradled fallen chestnuts from under the greening trees, cracking their hulls and rubbing the shiny boot-brown nut underneath with my sticky hands. In the hollows between the trees, I found walls built with old dead tree branches, scattered rocks, and other debris from the forest floor.

Eventually, the bucket was full, and I skipped home with it swinging from my arm like the milk maids that I read about in fairy tales who carried pails full of milk from the barn to the house every morning.

I took out my mother’s two empty vases and filled them with flowers for the dining room table and the bookcase in the living room. After these were arranged, I stooped down to the cupboard where my mother kept empty jars, jars used for everything from leftover dinner vegetables to fish bowls for the brown fish we caught in the pond on the other side of the woods. I picked fat jars with large openings. When I tucked the bluebells inside them, they were transformed into wide-mouthed jars of crystal. The stalks showed straight and strong through the sides of the jars, and the bursts of bell blossoms sprayed over the ridges, bursting with profusions of blue so intense that, as I admired them, I felt like my feet rose off the floor and my heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird.

Once the bucket was emptied, every room in the house was accented by a bouquet of bluebells . . . on a dresser here, table there, or a windowsill.

My mother passed me as I stood back to appreciate their beauty. Her eyes creased into jewels, and, at that moment, her irises were the same hue as the petals of the bluebells, even though she wasn’t rested and had a whole list of things to do that day.