Mother - Tribute to Mother: Flower Therapy

Therapy can be found in the simplest of things, but basically when someone is engaged in doing something which they enjoy doing that something becomes their therapy. Flowers are my mother’s therapy; they bring her spiritual healing and contentment.

My mother loves plants and flowers and I associate flowers anywhere with my mother. When I was growing up - there were seven of us- she made time to plant flowers about the yard and tended them with love. However, now that we have all grown up and left home, gardening fills the void which was left in her life. Every spot in the yard has been transformed into a flower bed and potted plants fill the porch and inside the house. She has set up a nursery in the back yard and this has become her favourite spot. There she keeps her cherished orchids, anthuriums and exotic plants which flourish in the coolness of the shade trees and produce a riot of colours and lovely fragrances.

The house is perched on an incline overlooking the town and surrounded by plants and flowers, it makes quite a picturesque scene. Motorists often stop to admire the flowers and at times, wedding parties seek permission to take pictures in the flower garden.

Flowers are powerful in conveying messages coming from the heart. They can bring healing and solace to a life that is sad, empty, lonely or downtrodden even if only for a moment. Why else do gentlemen send their ladies flowers to say “I love you” or to make up after a quarrel? Why do we say congratulations and welcome with flowers? Why do we offer comfort and sympathy to the grieving by sending them flowers? I have seen that flowers can transform someone’s life because tending to them keeps my mother healthy, youthful looking and contented. It provides her with daily exercise, a useful pastime, a worthwhile occupation, an avenue for meeting new people (other flower enthusiasts) and spiritual solace and comfort. Last week we celebrated her 80^th birthday and people are amazed to learn that she is 80 rather than 50. I can only hope that I can look like her if I make it to 80.

Flowers are indeed beautiful and as they can enrich lives, so too can they transform a room, a home, a community into a place of beauty, life and wellbeing. They bring colour, fragrance and vibrancy which lift the spirits and gladden the heart. I love the poem “Flowers” by Dennis Craig for it shows how a place which was once ugly and abandoned could be transformed into a place of beauty; not through the construction of magnificent structures costing millions of dollars, but simply through cleaning up and planting flowers there.

I have never learnt the names of flowers.

From beginning, my world has been a place

Of pot-holed streets where thick, sluggish gutters race

In slow time, away from garbage heaps and sewers

Past blanched old houses around which cowers

Stagnant earth. There, scarce green thing grew to chase

The dull-grey squalor of sick dust; no trace

Of plant save few sparse weeds; just these, no flowers.

One day, they cleared a space and made a park

There in the city’s slums; and suddenly

Came stark glory like lighting in the dark,

While perfume and bright petals thundered slowly.

I learnt no names, but hue, shape and scent mark

My mind, even now, with symbols holy.

In this poem, Craig highlights the power of flowers through the juxtaposition of two contrasting scenes. First, he presents a place which is ugly, dilapidated, squalid, unhealthy, depressing and devoid of life and color. Then next to this he presents a scene of beauty, life and inspiration. It is the same place transformed after it has been cleaned up and flowers have been planted there. He describes the effect of the transformation as "stark glory like lighting in the dark" and the effect on him is powerful, lasting and even divine:

I learnt no names, but hue, shape and scent mark

My mind, even now, with symbols holy.

There is certainly beauty, serenity and therapy in flowers; in nature for that matter and I am Blessed to be living in a country where nature is still relatively untouched. My country Dominica abounds in nature and is, in fact, known as the Nature Island of the Caribbean. A drive through the interior presents some very scenic spots with a wide variety of wild flowers and shrubs. Some of these sights are on mountain tops or in valleys and these present a splendid view to motorists. Hikers have the unbeatable experience of connecting with nature; actually touching and smelling these flowers and discovering the serenity and fulfillment to be derived from the experience of coming into direct contact with nature on our mountain trails.

I was nurtured into loving flowers and I will always love them because of my mother whom I so dearly love. I therefore dedicate this brief poem to my mother.

Mother, you are the flower

That perfumes my life

Adds colour to my days

Blesses my moments...

Mother, you are my flower

My greatest teacher

My pillar of support

My strong tower

Mother, you are my flower

Your petals enfold me

Soothing, healing, inspiring

Speaking your endless love

My mother, beautiful flower

Woman of gentle power

Shedding rays of serene beauty,

Scenting the world with love

Mother, my flower

Mother, my flower

My Mother, my flower

I strive to be like you