Memories Grow In My Garden

Last week a friend sent me an email about the loss of a loved one in a car wreck. Several days later, my friend emailed me the eulogy they’d written asking if I would proofread it. I did so, sent the eulogy back to them and extended my condolences.

At the end of the eulogy was this paragraph: An old German story says God finished naming the flowers, but left one without a name. So as not to be forgotten, a small voice pleaded, “Forget me not, O Lord,” and so it came to pass. The Lord named the tiny blue flower forget-me-not.

This summer I decided to turn a small section of my yard into an area I call my meditation spot. It’s built around the porch swing my children gave me many years ago for Mother’s Day. The frame the swing is attached to was formerly a child’s swing set we had purchased when our first baby arrived.

Just in front and to the right of the swing is a slight depression about 20 inches by 10 inches. I’d been looking at it trying to decide what to do with it. After studying it for several days, I came up with the idea to plant flowers there. But what variety? And I couldn’t just plant some flowers; there had to be some type of border around it.

The day after I returned the eulogy to my friend, I knew what I would do.

A friend gave me some very attractive small stones that are circular in shape, but have a notch cut out of one side so the stones fit together. Those stones will be the border for a little flower bed filled with forget-me-nots. Names of loved ones and friends who are no longer on this earth will be painted on the stones. The tiny pale blue flowers with their faces turned to the sky will represent people who have no one to remember them – no one to think about them – to care about them. And as I sit on my swing, my gaze will fall on those flowers and I’ll say a prayer for people who have been forgotten. And I’ll pray for all those I hold close in my heart.

The idea of planting forget-me-nots expanded to planting flowers that family members and friends like so well. That way whenever I look out at the bright splashes of color in my yard next spring and summer, I’ll always be reminded of those folks.