MOTHER'S DAY

This heart pin with the Japanese wave pattern was just made for a customer who requested one for her daughter-in-law for Mother's Day. The daughter-in-law is new to the family and it's her first Mother's Day and it seemed to be the perfect gift. It is photo-etched sterling silver and has a little window cutout for looking deep within.

Making this heart pin for this young mother makes me think about my mom and all the Mother's Days that we shared. My mom lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas and worked as a florist in the family business. She began as a delivery girl at the age of 16 working for her mom. We lost her...our common denominator...last year on her birthday. She worked until the week she went into the hospital. That was a total of 71 years working with flowers. We should all be so lucky.

Mother's Day at the flower shop was always a wild time. It is one of the biggest single day holidays for flowers. Work didn't stop just because you had a baby or a toddler. Mom took us with her. I remember being really little and falling asleep somewhere in the shop while my mom and her sisters worked deep into the night and the early morning making corsages and bouquets for Mother's Day. When we were babies (I'm the middle of five) we slept and napped in gladiola boxes because that was the cleanest place in the shop. As I got older I was either delivering flowers or sitting beside mom wiring them. It was a great opportunity to talk and visit and hear stories of her childhood and of her mother.

Most things had to be delivered by early Sunday morning on Mother's Day so that the mom's could wear their flowers to church. In the South, and maybe everywhere, I don't really know, children whose mom was living wore a red rose to church and if your mom had passed, you wore a white rose. Every Mother's Day mom would make a comment about how we would have to wear a pale pink rose because she was so tired and exhausted from all the work...just barely alive. She said that her mother used to say the same thing.

So this Mother's Day I will be thinking about my mom. I will smell some flowers and remember some stories and be grateful for every minute I got to be with her. I am so lucky.