All Of It

The bloom and the thorn

The sun is at my back and bright this morning. I put on my shoes and grab the leash. My dog hops so she is just on her back feet, excited at the sight of the blue plastic, knowing it means the walk is about to happen.

We make it to the end of the long driveway, pools of rain from the night before settled in the places where the gravel has been pushed away. I look to my right and see the white peonies growing by the roadside as I do each morning. I like to see how much they’ve changed from the day before, a little more open, some more droopy from the weight of their blooms.

Today I notice the mulitflora rose growing up amongst the petals, the thorny stems with small white blooms. They are what we call ‘invasive’. Not supposed to be here. Definitely not supposed to be in the middle of a blooming spring peony. Not the picture of perfection.

But here it is, the multiflora rose making her presence known, whether it is how I picture it or not. Here she is, ruining the ideal image of peony perfection.

I remember when I was five years old, cutting flowers from the neighbor’s front landscaping for my mom. It was Mother’s day morning. I ran into the kitchen, my hand dirty from my flower theft, holding them up to her as she stood by the kitchen sink.

“Where did you get those, honey?”

“Mrs. DeLalla’s front yard. Aren’t they pretty, mommy? They are for you.”

A laugh and a knelt down hug. She and I planted flowers later that week in Mrs. DeLalla’s front yard to replace what I had taken.

My children are three and five. Homemade cards and a scribbled picture that says “I love you, mama,” in three-year-old written lines.

My kids are eleven and thirteen. It is Mother’s Day weekend. No cut flowers stolen from the neighbor’s garden. No breakfast in bed. Just teen angst, a forgetting of what day it is, a mother’s expectation of what the day should hold.

I see a grandmother walking the aisles of the local greenhouse with who I imagine is her daughter. They tell the clerk as they pay for their cart of flowers that they do this every Mother’s Day weekend. It is the mother’s favorite day of the year.

I spoke to an acquaintance who is driving her son to rehab today. He will be there for the next month. She is hopeful. I hold her hands in mine.

I met a woman in a waiting room this week who is glowing and eight months pregnant with her third baby after two miscarriages.

This is my first Mother’s Day weekend without my mother. I feel her absence more acutely today. My twenty-one year old and nineteen year olds see it on my face. They walk over and puts their arms around me. I am seen and known and held in love visible and invisible.

A day of envisioned relationship perfection. A greeting card. An image without nuance.

I walk by the peony with the thorny stems growing up through the middle. I see the truth of all of it. I see the beauty in all of it. They exist together.

I walk back to the house. I get my clippers and walk back to the growth and clip some peony blooms and a few multiflora rose stems to peek out the middle of the bouquet I will build for my kitchen table. I don’t want one without the other.

I want what is real. I want both ends of life. I want it all.

Holding all of the mothers, the children, and everyone this Mother’s Day weekend.