Mothers Flowers

On our trip to Mansfield today, we drove past a drive with irises for sale for $1 each. Bought white, lavender, and purple and white. The homeowner was more or less giving them away, but I suppose the pricing deterred one person from taking them all. We talked with her a bit. She even offered to dig more for us and shared that her husband used to take vases of the flowers to the hospital when he went for chemo. We wondered later if he died and if the digging and separating was a therapy for her. She knew my husbands Uncle Bob who was a neighbor but is now in the nursing home at 93.
The irises reminded me of my mom. Every year in January, she perused the catalogs for new plants and bulbs to add to her collection. She bought at least one new iris each year and then knew their names. Her beds became quite extensive and required a lot of care. She constantly worried about "that old grass" that grew among the tubers and was so hard to pull from her clay soil. She envied the "dirt" we had at our home-a good mix of sand and rich soil that was easy to work. A tireless gardener, Mother persevered over the grass and soil to raise beautiful flowers for their pleasure to her and for sharing with others.