 "Who shall find a valiant woman? far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her. The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no need of spoils. She will render him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands. She is like the merchant's ship, she bringeth her bread from afar. And she hath risen in the night, and given a prey to her household, and victuals to her maidens. She hath considered a field, and bought it: with the fruit of her hands she hath planted a vineyard. She hath girded her loins with strength, and hath strengthened her arm. She hath tasted and seen that her traffic is good: her lamp shall not be put out in the night. She hath put out her hand to strong things, and her fingers have taken hold of the spindle. She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor." Proverbs 31: 10-20 |
It has always been my intention to write about my mother and what she has taught me about arranging flowers. She passed away on October 7, the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary. This post is a small tribute to an incredible woman.
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| The icon Mom wrote of the Theotokos |
In the 1960s, my parents bought an old farmhouse in a small northern Californian town. The one acre that surrounds the house, my mother converted into beautiful gardens: hydrangeas, roses, rhododendrons, redwoods, apples, azaleas, cherries, cedar, heebies, camellias, pine, ivy, jasmine, clematis, privet, hebe, lavender, rosemary, holly, escalonia, laurel.
There was no garden inhabitant that my mother didn't know about and have some pearls of wisdom to impart when asked. Over the years, I observed her fill vases with fresh greens and flowers with a self-taught technique that was remarkable. She wired together endless yards of cedar and holly for Christmas garlands. She had the knack of hot glueing antique vases to plates to create the look of tiered centerpieces straight out of colonial Williamsburg. My mother could do anything she set her mind to - create any "look" she wanted. She was an artist.
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| *The casket spray |
The last five years of her life she lived with dementia. Not the sort that affects the memory, the sort that renders the body helpless. In these last years, we shared many hours together: rosaries, walks, laughs, tears, frustrations, embraces. Many times I pushed her wheelchair through the neighborhood and we both struggled to remember the names of cottoneaster, wegelia and centranthus.
In those moments, I forgot the reasons I resented her in my adolescence. I fell in love with her unwavering faith and her soul's beauty and grace, things I had overlooked in my own self- absorption. The prolific climbing rose she gave me when we bought our house, the hebes and hydrangeas she propagated for me, these are small reminders of what she left behind. Hers was a beautiful life: the fruit of her hands.
The Byzantine Catholic priest at the mountain-top monastery where she is interred, spoke of her lifeless body as a seed being planted in the earth. A perfect analogy. My mother spent her life cultivating good fruit: faith, family, friends and flowers. Now she was the seed being planted in the earth.
We walked to the gravesite. A crude hole carved in a dry hillside by a monk on an excavator. She would have loved the innovation and the wild west setting! (When excavating the intitial site for her grave, an unknown fresh water spring gushed out of the hillside, to the delight of the monks in a time of drought! Her gravesite was moved closeby, a new hole dug, and 'Sharon's Spring' has become a playground for thirsty birds and visiting children.) The family assembled around the hole and lowered the casket into the ground, we picked up shovels and covered the seed: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. The fruit of Sharon's hands.
Eternal rest grant unto Sharon, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.
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| Dried hydrangeas propagated by Mom |
*A note about the casket spray: I wanted to incorporate as much beauty as it could possibly hold. Too much was never enough with Mom. She loved dramatic, over the top flowers! I used a lightweight aluminum container with a single block of floral foam and taped it in. Then I began by greening in with cedar, magnolia, fern, redwood, ivy, eucalyptus- Mom loved greenery and so do I! I chose an extravagant array of all the flowers that reminded me of her: roses, iris, lilies, alstromeria and stock. I used violets and dark burgundies, traditional colors of mourning and penance, with some white for the Resurrection. I wanted to do something special for the woman who taught me to love the True, the Good and the Beautiful!
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