March 8: Today is Mum’s Birthday. Had she lived this long, she would have been 99 years old. And she was just about stubborn enough to do it. In celebration of the day, I went to the store and bought a small pot of Hyacinth.
These are wonderful little flowers that fill the room with their scent. When she lived with Dad at Briton House, I would take them a little pot of spring flowers including Tulips, Hyacinth and Daffodils on her birthday. Whether she knew it or not, it was a bit of a tradition for me as a way to celebrate her day, to brighten the apartment for them, and hopefully as a harbinger of Spring being right around the corner. There was the added selfish benefit of being able to take the bulbs home when the blossoms were done, and put them in the garden for next year.
Indeed there are harbingers of Spring everywhere these days. I saw a Robin on the ground this morning looking for worms – popsicle worms for the next little while – and while I know that they stay around all Winter, it’s nice to see them back on the grass as opposed to shivering in the trees. Cardinals have been singing for a week or more, and the Crows have been carrying on their long-distance conversations for some time. This time last year, we saw a pair of rabbits in the courtyard, but with construction underway, that seems pretty unlikely this year.
And it has been a strange year for certain. I’ve spent the better part of the last 3 months indoors except for trips to the grocery store and runs around the neighbourhood. Some of those got put on hold when the weather got into the minus-teens, and I felt worse for that. Face-to-face contacts have been limited to people I know that I can trust to have isolated over the last while. But as difficult as it has been for me, I think of how difficult it might have been for Mum.
She enjoyed singing with her choir, and was very determined to have her hair set / cut / permed every week. She was quite mobile and didn’t take kindly to people telling her what she could and couldn’t do. Being a resident of a senior’s home, she would have been under a severe lock-down, and wearing a mask would have undoubtedly been a test of wills at some point. Chin thrust forward I can almost hear her muttering about how stupid it is to wear this thing ….
So for the next few days at least, I’ll have a small pot of flowers to remind me of her and those days when things seemed to be a little more comfortable and enjoyable. Hopefully, we will soon return to more normal circumstances. Fingers crossed.