Saturday, May 11, 2013

May Flowers (and the best gift I ever gave myself)

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 Photo 52, Week 19:  May Flowers

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We planted those pansies that stood the test of snow.

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They are lovely and resilient.

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And then I went to the greenhouse to look at the flowers
that might do better if I wait a couple more weeks.
After that I walked around a little lake with all the happy people,
loving the warmth as you will see.

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But the irises reminded me of a treasured gift I once gave.

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The gift of honor, expressed in presence.

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The year Ben was born, I was trying to decide what to give my mom for Christmas.

I gave her a coupon.

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The coupon entitled her to some number of lunches with Ben and me.
She would go home for lunch from work each day because she lived so close,
so I told her we would come and see her and bring her lunch.
It was a little trek for us, but to see her and my baby enjoying each other would be worth it.

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Although I had gone through phases of my adult life where paying attention to my mom wasn't my highest priority, I had learned that it was a joy to be able to honor her.  There were certainly things I did (living overseas for four years for example) that I knew didn't exactly please her--but pleasing your parents is a bad goal.  Honoring them, on the other hand, is a great goal, and something I had learned to pray and ask God to enable me to do.  Bringing her grandson to see her was the perfect way to honor her.

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As you might have imagined by now,
God knew when I gave her that gift what I never could have known.
She really had very little time left with us.
The gift turned out to be for me.

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Thankfully I had gotten off to a good start,
because just after we went over to see her one day in February,
she left on vacation.

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She never came back.

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She had a wonderful vacation,
and she died happy.
Very happy.

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And honored.

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My last  memory of my mom
is of her and my tiny son giggling at each other.

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I thought about that again this past week
when my cousins buried their mom and grandma,
my great aunt.

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They are an amazing family,
and she was SO very close to her grandchildren.
And oh, did they ever honor her.

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I am thrilled about that for them
because even as they grieve,
their hearts are at such peace.

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Today, I hope you have the gift 
of spending Mother's Day
with your mom.

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If you do, I hope you know
that honor

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is always the perfect gift.

2 comments:

Skeller said...

I'm all choked up. Perspective is a beautiful thing. And so is honor.

And your flower pictures are stunning.

Skeller said...

ps. I'm also happy that Spring has finally found you :-)