Violets

The difficult thing about being a parent is that it may take children 58 years or so to appreciate you.  When people die your relationship with them continues.  It’s just that the conversation becomes one way. They’ve had the last word. But they nevertheless continue to exert an influence in poignant ways.

My mothers love of corny Broadway musical records – the ones that made me cringe as a teenager - now provide quite a bonding experience for my sister and me – all those tunes etched into our young brains – now give us great fun - belting out the choruses at inopportune moments to embarrass the nieces.  My mother would also be surprised to know she passed on a love of Kathleen Ferrier and that we finally all took a trip to her beloved Port Sunlight. 

And then there are other associations that linger.  For many years after a particularly traumatic funeral I could not buy flowers. They made me physically nauseated. There were places I couldn’t go, and others I couldn’t leave. But this has now passed.

These days I find positive memories attached to certain flowers. I keep two bowls of violets, not because I grew up with them but because when I visited home as an adult, my mother had five magnificent specimens that she had cultivated, sitting on her bathroom cabinet.  After she died we all tried for several years to save them from neglect and keep them going.  It was some life-affirming thing to see them raising their little purple heads to enjoy the early morning sunshine. I keep mine the same way, in the bathroom, and today they bloomed. 

Last year I found myself buying a Christmas cactus for the same reason.  I spied it in the corner of a shop window under a table and brought it home.  It has just sprung a rash of tiny buds that will probably take a month or so to open. This means they will be covered in pink blooms around the time of my mother’s birthday. Ironically, I always forgot her birthday when she was alive and I only know it now because I keep a family tree - I’m not good on dates - and I make a particular point of forgetting the dates when people die - I prefer instead to remember how they nurtured the violets.