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One bite-sized story every morning to uplift, motivate, or provoke thought.Archive for April 23, 2013
Seeing Mom’s Vision
April 23, 2013 at 9:09 am · Filed under stories and tagged: Dutch Colonial, family, Flower, Garden, Home, Mothers, Parenting
< by Sandy >
We moved into our home 26 years ago and it’s a Dutch Colonial (which means it looks like a barn). There’s a nice amount of grass surrounding it which was perfect for our girls to play, but the rest of our property is surrounded by woods … thick woods.
The day we moved in my mom was here helping feed everyone and at the close of the day she and I sat on our front step just looking out at the beautiful trees. “This would look so beautiful naturalized” she said. “Naturalized?” I questioned. “Yes, that means it would look beautiful with lots of wild flowers growing in and around the woods” she said.
I had never gardened up to this point other than to put a couple of geraniums in a pot and calling it good, so the thought of replanting our entire woods seemed just a bit daunting.
My wonderful Mother died in 2001 and something happened in the years that followed. I kept looking at those woods summer after summer and gradually my eyes started to see what her eyes had seen and little by little I started naturalizing those woods with flowers.
A few years ago I was asked to be on the garden tour in our small community. “Me????” I asked. “Yes” they said, “your woods are so beautiful.”
Thanks Mom for your vision in sooooooooo many ways.