Keeping a Promise

My mother asked me for a promise in the years before she passed on.  We talked about it many times.  She always said, "I cannot understand why people carry dead flowers to the dead."  And she made me swear that I never would.  Mother said, "Buy yourself a live flowering plant if you want to remember me.  Remember with a smile and with life."

Other people might not understand why I avoid the cemetery but I remember the way that I promised to do.  It's good wisdom really to be joyful and not to grieve.  I've taken this to heart for other losses, too.

There's a new African violet visiting on my desk this afternoon.  Double-petaled pink flowers with pink-dusted leaves.  Really one of the prettiest violets I've seen in a long time. 

But it's not my mother I'm thinking of today.  It's my neighbor's dear cat Patch, my kitty cuddle friend.  It was a real gift to be his petsitter.  I'll miss him, and I'm remembering the way my mother said to do:  with a smile and a flowering plant.