Dandelions

Living my kids' growing-up years in Gatineau/Hull we could always expect the dandelion explosion to happen right about the first week in May. And on Sunday morning, second Sunday in May, Mother's Day, there they would be covering the lawns and roadsides and boulevards. Bouquets of dandelions offered from small stained and sticky hands into mothers' welcoming grasps were the signal that Mother's Day was indeed offical.

I recall saying that dandelions were the guarantee that every mother could have a bouquet for her day. Of course, she also had those sticky stains to remove somehow, from her own and her child's hands. But that was such a small thing.

There would also be the flying fluffy seeds to follow and the complaints about the persistent weeds in the lawns to be managed with deadly herbicides. On this Sunday morning, the dandelions' cheery yellow faces smiled at everyone.

This is the first Mother's Day I don't have my mother. In the congregation of my childhood I would be out looking for a white bloom to pin over my heart to indicate my mother is gone. That was our tradition; a coloured flower for a living mum, a white one if she were no longer with us. There were other traditions over the years that mark Mother's Day in church and out. You may remember some of them.

Mother's Day in America was actually established as a pacifist reaction to the terrible loss of life in the Civil War. Julia Ward Howe led a campaign of mothers to stop the killing of their sons in war. That hasn't worked out very well, has it? And Mother's Day has been co-opted by the card, flower and candy companies.

I'll think of my mother this weekend, especially as I see all these beautiful blossoms. My mother loved plants and flowers! She wasn't too keen on dandelions, however, but to my mind you just can't beat a dandelion bouquet delivered from a little sticky hand on Mother's Day morning.

Happy Mother's Day to us all.

Posted by Marion