A Mother’s Day Tale…

When my daughter was in pre-school, they always made a big deal out of Mother’s Day.  The children would make some sort of project to “bring home to mom”, and this particular May, my daughter brought home half a dixie cup filled with dirt and in it was a tiny Lily of the Valley plant.

It sat in my kitchen window for a few days, and then I decided to plant it outside.  I knew nothing about Lily of the Valley and just found a part shadyspot and stuck the small plant in the ground. I promptly forgot about it.

Raising children has been sort of like that.  We do things, without much to go on, (I couldn’t whip out my phone back then and Google to find out about the proper growing conditions for Lily of the Valley).  Yet each small thing we do, each piece of information we impart, no matter how innocent, may have an impact later on that we may never know about.

The plant withered away, and life went on.  We gardened and trimmed and planted many other things over the years, but I really completely forgot all about that Lilly of the Valley.

Until about ten years ago.

One spring I went out to walk through the beds and imagine my surprise when I discovered this.

That little tiny plant had been quietly growing underground, sending out shoots, and ten years later that plant reproduced itself a hundred fold.  And each spring my garden is overtaken by the fruits of that one little act.

To my children on this special day.  Yes, I am a mother.  I taught you what I knew, what I thought, what I cared about, and hoped along the way I planted something that would make you who you are today.  I gave you wings, but it is up to you to fly with them, where ever they take you.  I think of all those seemingly meaningless things we experienced together that blossomed forth many years later when I look at the Lily of the Valley patch in my garden, and when you remind me about things we did and things I’ve said that I’ve completely forgotten about.

When raising children, no thing is really inconsequential.  Thank you to both of my children for the  wild ride, it has been my greatest joy to watch you grow up and become the people you are now.

Love, mom