Mom

My mother died on May 25 at 1:30 pm.   What to write about my mother?   I could write a ton of things.  She was a fantastic gardener, and she would be glad to know that her garden looked wonderful on the Tuesday she died.  She has a purple clematis climbing a trellis at the back door that one of the hospice nurses remarked on how beautiful it was.   The azaleas were in bloom.  We had opened the front curtains to show her how the front yard looked, and I am hopeful she was able to notice.  That morning,  I went out and picked some of her magenta rhododendrons and put them in a vase next to her hospital bed.  Her next door neighbor remarked that she could remember my mother doing the same thing this time last year.  I can remember picking some of those same flowers and wrapping them in a wet paper towel and aluminum foil to give to my teachers every spring at Rinke Elementary School.    The bright pink roses were in bloom from the bush that was at the house when we first moved there in 1969.   It was planted by the original owners, a family known to us as kids as "The Balooneys", although I don't actually know how their name was spelled.   How on earth did my mom keep the Balooneys' rose bush living for 40+ years?   I can't count how many rose bushes that haven't survived at my house.   When my mom was still able to talk, she kept telling me to take cuttings of her roses and dip them in butyric acid and plant them at my house for my daughter, who drew her Grandma lots of rose pictures.   I've tried it 4 times now and it hasn't worked, but I'll keep trying until I succeed.   Maybe I need to try a root cutting hormone?

My mother was the kind of gardener that would see things she liked somewhere and try to find it on sale somewhere or get a cutting or some seeds and make it happen in the perfect spot in her yard.   She wouldn't hesitate to knock on a stranger's door and ask them about a flower.   I can remember when I first moved to Ann Arbor, she wanted me to make sure I planted what she called "Coronation Flower" - it was a magenta colored dianthus with light green fuzzy leaves that self seeded.   I had quite a bit of it for a while, but no longer.  I am sure if I looked at her garden when I am there tomorrow, I will find some to bring home again.  She wasn't big on Latin names of plants; when I called her plants by their scientific names, she'd gently correct me with their common names.   But what did I know?  I used the proper names and my plants didn't survive.  She called hers what she called hers and they lived. 

Despite her lack of appreciation for science when it came to gardening, it was her lifelong wish to donate her body to science which I think is a wonderful thing to do.  How it works when the time comes, all you do is make a phone call and some really kind people come and pick up the body.  Since my mother died in Warren, that meant she went to the Wayne State Medical School.  In other areas of the state, bodies are taken to U of M or MSU.   Following the study of the body, the cremains can be returned to the family if desired.  So, at my mom's funeral service, she won't be there physically, just in pictures.   Also, she'll be there in flowers.  She wasn't big on cut flowers from the florist, so my sister and brother and I have all bought the same rose bush to plant in her honor - it's called Carefree Wonder and I am hoping that it's true to it's name and it survives at my house.