In Atlanta we have the luxury of planting pansies in the fall and viewing their curious faces all winter long. That is how my grandma described their blooms, as faces. She was right. If you look into a pansy’s velvet petals you can see its eager expression peeking out at you. It was my grandmother’s love for this flower that drew me to Viola tricolor hortensis when I was a little girl. My favorites were the white petals with purple centers, or “faces.” They remain my favorite flowers today.
Since pansies are annuals, last year’s flowers had long since died and been pulled from the ground, never to be seen again. I hadn’t taken the time to plant even one flat of pansy seedlings that fall. Actually, I hadn’t found the time to do much of anything but work since September. My job had become especially demanding due to a project that required me to fly weekly to Washington, DC. Between airports, delayed flights, cancellations, taxicabs, trains and countless hotel rooms, I hadn’t spent enough time with my husband, hadn’t returned phone calls from my parents, hadn’t sent birthday cards to my dearest friends, hadn’t taken the necessary time to come to terms with the death of my grandma and certainly hadn’t made time to put pansies in the ground.
Perhaps by skipping the whole pansy planting process that autumn I was putting off facing the reality that Grandma, the only grandparent I had ever known, had died.
My connection between her and the flowers was so strong. I told myself I was too busy for gardening so many times that I convinced myself it was true.
As I drove home from the airport one chilly November evening, I was overwhelmed by an empty pang in my heart. It had begun as a slight ache and built up to a deep, hollow throb after five straight days of deadlines, lists, conference calls and meetings. I hadn’t allowed any time for myself, to read, to visit with friends and family or even to pray. I had tried to ignore this vacuous feeling. I had just kept going and going, like a robot following programmed commands, forgetting about all of the things in life that gave me deeper meaning. The pain was especially great this particular evening due to a canceled flight that delayed my getting home until long after my lonely husband was already in bed.
After fighting eight lanes of stop-and-go traffic for over an hour, caused by what appeared to be a fatal accident, I arrived frazzled and tired in my suburban neighborhood. As I pulled into my driveway, my headlights shone into the empty flowerbeds. I glimpsed something white resting on the ground. I parked my car in the garage and walked around to the front yard to collect what I assumed was a piece of garbage to throw away. But I did not find trash. Instead I found a lone white pansy with a purple face flourishing by itself in a barren bed of pine straw.
The determined flower had fought all odds to spring from a ripped-up root, which is not bred for regrowth, to return another year. It didn’t seem possible, and maybe it wasn’t. Yet here was a perfect pansy grinning at me and asking me from its remarkable face why I too couldn’t break through the dirt and let myself bloom.
Touching that flower, I knew this was Grandma’s way of letting me know that although she had left this earth, she wasn’t really gone. Just like the pansy that had been pulled from the soil yet was still blossoming, my grandmother’s spirit would always flourish inside my heart. I sighed, recalling that Grandma would have never put work first. Her family and friends were the priorities in her world. She didn’t know the meaning of timetables or deadlines. Although her life was simple, she was always happy and saw only the good in others and the beauty in the world around her.
It was time to open my heart and my eyes to the important things around me, to fill up the empty hole inside me with the nourishment that only God, family and friends could give me. Work could wait. Life, as the pansy showed me, could not.
Laura L. Smith
Red and White Carnations
This was the first Mother’s Day since Grandmother passed away. I dreaded going to church and seeing families sit together with their moms. I hated being in church alone, and especially today I hated admitting to myself and others that my mother left and my parents were divorced. I never talked much about it, but I realized everyone in the church knew more about it than I did.
“Maybe I should have stayed home,” I said to myself as I walked up the church steps.
“Good morning, and happy Mother’s Day,” a greeter said to several churchgoers in the narthex. “Please take a red carnation if your mother is living and a white one if she has passed on.”
I must have stood in front of the large basket of flowers for several minutes. I couldn’t decide which one to take.
My real mother is alive, but dead to me. I reasoned. She left when I was two years old, and I’ve only seen her twice in all of my sixteen years.
The first time she showed up was two years ago. It was my brother’s high school graduation. A teacher came to me and said, “Barbara, this is your mother.”
“My mother!” I snapped. “What is she doing here?” Behind my teacher stood a brown-haired, short lady with a warm smile.
“Hi, Barbara. You’ve turned out to be quite a young lady,” she said.
“Hello,” I managed to respond. She looked at me and waited for me to say something else. I didn’t know what to say or do. The seconds seemed like hours. I just stood there and looked at her. Do I look like her? I wondered. One of my classmates rescued me from the awkward moment by asking me on the stage to have our pictures taken. I excused myself and made sure I got lost in the crowd.
The second and last time I saw her was at Grandmother’s funeral. She tried to talk to me then, but I just looked down. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
I have no memories of anything my mother and I did together. To call her “Mother” seemed strange because Grandmother Benedict took care of me, went shopping with me and saw to it that my homework got done.
“I really should take a white carnation,” I rationalized. Grandmother was the real mother to me and she was gone. She was there when I needed to talk. She taught me the art of homemaking. She instructed me in cooking and baking the Hungarian way.
I have fond memories of Grandmother sitting by her quilting frame and singing hymns in her native tongue. I would sit and listen to stories of how she immigrated to America and how God kept her safe, providing for her needs. She always said, “Use what God gives you wisely. If you pray for your daily bread, then don’t waste it.”
Looking back, I knew her faith and the time I spent with her passed on influences that were like the quilts she made. There were many fragmented pieces that, when sewn together, formed a complete pattern. The dominant pieces were love, joined by threads of laughter and tears.
I pulled a white carnation from the basket and took a seat in the back pew. The organist began the prelude and quietness settled over the congregation. I sat clutching the white carnation while my heart held tightly to the past. Grief surfaced again, and I saw nothing promising in my future. Most of the people around me knew that my real mother was alive. Would they understand why I took a white carnation? Does God understand?
The choir began to take their seats. The organist played softly. I raised my eyes and focused on the large wooden cross behind the choir loft.
Oh, Jesus, you do understand, don’t you? You were hurt. You were rejected by those you loved. Yet you chose to forgive them. Help me to do the same with my mother.
The organist continued to play as the pastor took his seat behind the pulpit. I looked back in the narthex and noticed the basket of flowers. I quickly, but quietly, walked back to the flower arrangement to put the white carnation back. I wanted to prove to God and myself that I was willing to deal with the past and the future.
All of the red carnations were taken, but my eye caught a glimpse of one single red and white carnation lying on the table. It probably had been taken out of the basket because it was neither all red nor all white.
God does understand my feelings, I thought. The florist didn’t make a mistake. This carnation is just right for me on this Mothe
r’s Day.
I took the red and white carnation back to my seat, thanking God that I would forgive the mother who was alive, and love forever the grand”mother” who would always be alive in me spiritually.
Barbara Hibschman
The Feeling
And whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.
Matthew 18:5
I sat in a beautiful city park one day watching my three-year-old granddaughter swinging when I felt this take-your-breath-away feeling. It was a feeling I had often experienced on our own little piece of land out in the country.
It is strange how we ended up buying that place. We were looking for a place to live and finally discovered an old farmhouse on an acre and a half thirty minutes from the city. The house had been built as a one-room schoolhouse in 1911, and the basement was still a dirt cellar. Looking at this old place, I regretted the thought of giving up my beautiful home in the city, with wall-to-wall carpets, a lovely fireplace and a bay window. I knew my husband wanted a country place, but giving up my city home was not going to be easy. Then we walked out across the land, and this beautiful feeling hit me. I commented to my husband, “It feels so good here.”
We looked through the old place and once again walked out in the yard, and as we traveled down a wee slope to a tree-lined enclosure this wondrous feeling again came upon me. “Honey, it feels so good here!” I guess I told him that at least three or four times that day and again in the weeks and months that followed our purchase of the home. I received that glorious feeling each time I walked into a small enclosure we called our Secret Garden.
But I was not the only one to feel this warm energy. Each time we had company I encouraged them to spend some time alone in the Secret Garden, and every single person said the same thing. They felt a good, warm feeling come over them.
Now here I was in a park with my granddaughter and I had that same amazing feeling. I called to my rambunctious little granddaughter, “Jani, come over here and sit with Grandma.”
She climbed up on the park bench and managed to slow her energetic little body long enough to listen. “Jani, will you sit here with me and just close your eyes and see if you feel anything?”
Bless her; she didn’t question my weird request. She merely closed her eyes and sat perfectly still. I waited to see if she would experience what I did. And then I kept on waiting, as she seemed in no hurry to open her eyes. This was surprising for such a lively little bundle of energy.
Finally I could wait no longer. “Jani?” I touched her shoulder, gently encouraging her to open her eyes. As she did, I asked her, “Jani, did you feel anything?”
She beamed a beautiful, radiant smile and said, “Oh Gamma, it feel like God giving me a hug!”
Ellie Braun-Haley
Picked Just for You
Flowers are love’s truest language.
Park Benjamin
“I’ll call you right back, Marge,” I told my friend on the phone. “Someone’s at the door. Probably another salesman.”
On our street we get salespeople of all kinds—remodeling, newspapers, entertainment discount cards, you name it—plus eager children with Girl Scout cookies, boxes of candy, gift wrapping packages and Easter eggs, all in the name of charity for more schools and clubs than I can keep straight.
This time my door opened to two little girls. I had met Alyssa, six, a couple of weeks before. Since then, she’d waved to me every time she struggled past my house on a pair of inline skates almost as big as she. Like most of the children on our street, she called me “Grandma Bonnie.”
Now Alyssa smiled. “Hello, Grandma Bonnie!” she chirped. “This is my little sister, Ariana. She’s three.” To her very nervous sister, “It’s okay, honey. She’s nice people. You’ll like her.”
The three-year-old held a “bouquet” in one hand, and the other gripped a tiny notebook and huge broken crayon. “Go on,” her big sister urged, “tell her.”
Ariana looked at me solemnly. “I want to help raise money for my preschool,” she said, holding out her flowers. “So I’m selling these for one dollar a bunch.”
I had a hard time hiding my grin. I understood her notebook and crayon—a substitute for the record-keeping forms and pens she’d seen the older children lug door-to-door with their wares. She couldn’t, of course, even print her own name, much less a receipt.
As for the bouquet, it consisted of seven scraggly oxalis blossoms. Now if you’re a gardener, you’re probably already cringing. If you’re not, let me explain. Oxalis is a weed, a madly determined, clover-like plant that’s almost impossible to get rid of. Worse than dandelions! Obviously Ariana had plucked these despised but thriving flowers from her own yard or a neighbor’s—or maybe even mine.
Her big sister smiled. “Aren’t they lovely, Grandma Bonnie? And they only cost a dollar for the whole bunch. It’s all for Ariana’s preschool.”
Now maybe I was being played for the world’s biggest sucker, but the girls’ initiative did tickle me. “All right,” I agreed, “one dollar coming up.”
Alyssa tucked the bill in her sister’s skirt pocket. Then Ariana handed me my purchase. “Uh,” I suggested, “why don’t you just keep the flowers and the money both? Then you could sell the flowers to someone else.”
Both girls stared at me, horrified. “Oh, no, Grandma Bonnie!” Ariana cried. “We picked them just for you. See, they’re beautiful!”
And so they were. Seven slender stems soon graced the bud vase by my kitchen window. A week later, they were still crowned with a tassel of perfectly shaped lemon-yellow bells of joy—twice as many as when my little neighbor handed them to me with dozens of new buds yet to open. What a bargain!
I had called these tiny plants “weeds”—disgusting, worthless things with no right to exist. But in their innocent hearts, those two little girls saw them as they really were—a precious creation of God’s to treasure and share out of loving hearts to brighten the day of a lonely old “Grandma.”
Bonnie Hanson
Shiny Red Shoes
Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though late, a sure reward succeeds.
William Congreve
Caring for my tiny granddaughter for days, weeks and then months at a time was one thing. But permanently? I was bone weary with rearing kids alone, and now I had my father as well.
I felt I had no choice, yet I worried, could I do this?
Two-year-old April quickly settled into our little single-mom household and began to thrive. Already she was her great-grandpa’s “little buddy.” He had recently moved from a cane to a wheelchair, which he and April called “Buggy.”
April dressed each morning at one end of the large house and skipped down the hall (April seldom walked) and into our game room, which I had bartered for use as a Montessori school. There, under the tutelage of a wellrespected headmistress, she received the one-on-one nurturing that I’d given my other children and reliable child care so I could keep my corporate job a few miles away.
As Daddy grew weaker, affluent family members promised to pay my salary if I would quit my job to care for him. So I gave up the career for which I had worked so hard, sold the country home and the horses, and moved nearer to family, to a pleasant suburban neighborhood with a good elementary school nearby.
Before long, the promised financial help suddenly stopped with brutal finality. Yet I felt certain that God had called me to care for both father and grandchild, and he would show me the way.
We cut out all unnecessary expenditures, and my one teen still at home went to work part-time. I began a series of odd jobs that would take me from home only a few short hours at a time . . . window washing, cleaning houses and sewing.
When April was five, her favorite treat was a shopping trip to anywhere. I had squirreled away sixty-five dollars to spend on Christmas, including our traditional turkey and trimmings and token gifts for a few close family. “Honey,” I told her, “we’ll do most of our shopping at t
he church bazaar, then on Christmas Eve when things are on sale, we’ll go to the mall, and buy anything you want that costs under twenty dollars.”
That day the sky was full of rain clouds, and the parking lot was crowded. I tucked my checkbook, a snack and rain cape into a small backpack and started across the huge parking lot, little beribboned doggy-ears bouncing beside me. We heard the Salvation Army bell clanging noisily long before we approached the store’s entrance. April tugged at my fingers, “Munner! I want to give some money to the needy children!”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
If I had completed the paperwork lying on my desk at home, part of the money pitched into that little black pot would have been offered to us. I felt in my pocket. Lord, like the widow’s mite, please honor whatever we can offer.
With great ceremony, I dropped a nickel and two pennies into the little outstretched hand. The coins rattled in the pot, and April clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling. The soldier rang his bell, smiling, “Thank you! Merry Christmas!”
Inside, we made our way through the noisy crowd, and April suddenly stopped, tugging me to lean down, “Munner, I want some shiny red Mary Janes!”
Red patent shoes? On Christmas Eve? If there were a pair of red shoes anywhere in the city this time of year, they would be expensive.
We giggled a lot that day, searching. I pleaded for a trip down toy aisles; she adamantly pleaded, “I want Mary Janes . . . ,” then stooping to point, “with a shiny buckle right here!”
Between shoe stores and the inevitable, “Sorry, no red shoes . . . ,” I guided her through every toy section in the mall, to no avail.
We said it together, “I’m hungry!” as we arrived at the fast food island, laughing and racing for an empty table. My backpack produced cheese, some crackers, her lunch Thermos filled with milk and two straws. She nibbled at the cheese and nibbled carrot curls off five slim fingers where she had carefully placed them like golden rings.