The Simple Reminders (& a Giveaway!)
A few weeks ago, I put up hanging baskets of impatiens on my front porch here at the farm. I started crying the moment I finished hanging the last basket and I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, they make me so happy… why would I be crying?
You see, growing up, every Mother’s Day, my dad would get my mom hanging baskets of impatiens and put them around our front porch. (He also planted a tree each year for her… but this post is about flower baskets). Those baskets of impatiens on our porch made my mom so happy. Every year, like clockwork, my dad did it and every year my mom was floored by their beauty. She would smile and tear up and say, “Oh honey, thank you!!” She’d tend to those baskets every day, watching them grow and flourish throughout the year. By the fall, the baskets would be spilling over with flowers because they grew so much. In the years she was sickest and couldn’t water them herself, my dad lovingly watered those baskets of flowers every day.
When we got this farm, I immediately pictured hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch. There were already hooks there! It was perfect. And even though it’s not Mother’s Day and I picked out these baskets myself – the moment I hung that last basket of impatiens, the memories of my mom’s simple, beautiful joy came flooding in.
I miss her. And I wish she was here to help me with the flowers. I wish she was here to go antiquing with me. I wish she was here to help me paint. I wish she was here to comfort my kids (okay, me) when another chick dies. I wish she was here. 18 years and I wish she was here.
If you’ve experienced loss… especially the loss of a parent, you know this feeling. You know this pain. It doesn’t end, it just changes. And sometimes, the simplest reminder is the one that triggers something within you. And that’s okay. Hold onto those little reminders. Hold onto those simple memories. Often times it’s not the “big” things that you remember years down the road, it’s the little things.
It’s a sweet reminder to me to keep focused on the little things in my own life. To treasure simple memories with my kids and my husband. And to hang baskets of impatiens every year and to show my kids how much joy they can bring.
What about you? What simple joys do you have in your life right now?
Happy Spring!
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