Flowers.
That's the go-to gift for Mother's Day, the one thing that you don't have to worry about being the wrong size or violating the diet or making her glare at you across the table when you thought she needed a new skillet.
It's Mother's Day morning and even if you have totally blown it so far you still have time. The grocery stores have bouquets. You might be able to find wildflowers by the side of the road. If you're far away you can e-mail her a photo of flowers. Yes, this is lame, and some groveling might be involved. But she won't make you grovel too long. She's your mom.
I hesitate to get too general on a day like this because the fact is that some people don't have great moms. But I'm guessing that even if you didn't have an official mother, somebody did the job. It might have been a grandma or an aunt or a woman down the street or a teacher. Somebody did the mom things. Or at least tried to.
That's who gets the flowers.
Have you ever thought, why flowers? They don't last long. If your mom is like most, she keeps them until the stems droop and the vase-water looks like something you might dip out of the Okefenokee Swamp.
But she leaves them up on the shelf because they remind her of you. Try not to read too much into that.
That's not the part that reminds her of you, anyway.
If we were really matching the gift with the day, we wouldn't buy flowers. We'd buy seeds. Because that's what our moms got with us -- a tiny seed that needs a lot of tending.
The thing about most flowers is that you don't see the backstory.
Every rose in the flower shop was cultivated -- watered and fertilized and pruned and dusted for bugs and placed in the sun.
Even a wildflower caught the breaks of God and nature -- the seed dropped in the right spot, the rain came at the right time, the deer that passed by wasn't hungry. Something looked out for that flower even if it was just fate.
Most of us are something in between. We're hybrids, part wild and part cultivated, trained to grow one way but prone to shoot off in another.
We never turn out just like the gardeners wanted. But somehow, in their eyes, we are perfect in our own strange ways.
I'm guessing your mom never said all this on Mother's Day. She might not even think it. But she feels it. This is why flowers fit the day, whether they're a dozen show roses or a fistful of black-eyed Susans from the ditch.
You are the flower your mother raised.
And no matter how ugly you feel, to your mom you are a beautiful blossom.
So spring for the flowers. The skillet can wait until Christmas.
FYI: I'll be reading my essay from the new book "Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas" Wednesday night at 7:30 at the Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave. There'll be music, book-signing and a general good time. Come check it out.
IN MY OPINION Tommy Tomlinson
