Flowers for your birthday Mom

Dear Mom, Happy Birthday!!
Moses 2: 31.  And I, God, saw everything that I had made, and, behold, all things which I had made were very good...

We thought we would send you flowers for your birthday!
 

Our birthday blogs are limited to our children, their spouses and children, and our moms, but now that Melvina has left us, you are our only living mom.  It gives one pause, on so many levels, and makes us all the more grateful to celebrate your life.

We hope you are having a SMASHING time on your river cruise in Europe!!—just what all 80-plus ladies are doing I hear—but we also hope you have a chance to check your internet and see our good wishes for you birthday,

Some of my earliest memories are of you stopping and pointing out to us something lovely.  We’d be busy, going fast, not paying attention, maybe quarreling in the car, or running ahead of you on a trail, and you would make sure we didn’t miss the beauty around us. Sometimes it was a sunset, a herd of elk, or a particularly beautiful garden.  

Often it was a flower. 

Later, when Jack came into our lives, he added another whole dimension to flower viewing.  He’d do whole day trips filled with nothing but flower photography, and back then, with pre-digital cameras, it was no easy task to get a clear close up of a tiny flower.   He could make them look so surreal, like he had invited us into another world, where the intricacies of a tiny flower were visible and startling.

Well, Dean has been capturing flowers everywhere we go, here on our island and the next, and though the skill required now is not commensurate with that needed back in the day, his patience and good eye, and knowledge of his camera’s capabilities have produced some really great results. From the first few weeks we were here he was already taking flower pictures, and I told him we should save the flower pictures for Mom’s birthday.  We amassed quite a catalog of flowers of Negros Oriental for your enjoyment.

Because of your life-long love of flowers, your determination to help us notice them, the fact that you are the one who gave me names for most of those I know, and your green thumb and dedication in growing them even now, I can truly say, like the Primary song, “Dear mother all flowers remind me of you.”   

Next week in our blog post we will tell a story of some flowers recycled from one wedding to the next.  When you read it, remember the story is also part of your birthday flowers blog post and is dedicated to you.  I arranged for the flower exchange--to the bride who had none--partly due to the appreciation you have given me that loveliness matters, that God’s bounty enriches life, and that people feel God’s love through His lovely creations.

 

We hope YOU enjoy this display of the flowers WE enjoy every day. Thanks Mom for teaching me to see them, name them, and love them. And thank you for your example of always giving freely of your bounty so that others could feel God's love through you.

Enjoy the show!!

often you see this--it's just an added decoration--if a plant has no flower, they add eggshells all over it

this one just slays me--never saw anything like it!!

We love you Mom