I don’t mind the job of weeding my garden because it is filled with so many good memories. It’s filled with good friends and loved ones.

Flowers are a common gift on holidays, a gift when visiting someone, also a caring expression at times of bereavement. They are an expression of love. And, when we moved to Phillipston in 1995, many people thoughtfully gave me plants from their gardens to help me create a garden in our new home.

Some of these people live nearby, some have moved away and some have passed away, but all their thoughtful gifts are close to us and come up every year. I call it my Memory Garden.

As I weed, I greet them and are reminded of the friendships and the memories connected with the friendships. Some of the plants contain many years of friendship. I get lost in my thoughts. I reminisce. Hello to Elisabeth, to Sandy, to Anne, to Thelma, to Linda, to Sonya, to Karen, to Betty, to Ginny, to Sue, to Mary, to Nola. In fact, I refer to the plants by the names of the givers. One plant given to me touches my heart very deeply — the forget-me-not, and my story about it is truly a story of love.

On the Mother’s Day before our son Bart died, we went out to eat and then stopped at a nursery because he wanted to buy me a plant. We searched through the section that had shade plants and I found a flat of small seedlings that was labeled myosotis, its Latin name. We had no idea what the plant was, but the leaves were ones I didn’t have, so he bought it.

We took it home and planted them right in front of the kitchen window. You can imagine the heartwarming and emotional surprise it was when the plants bloomed the next spring and turned out to be forget-me-nots. And, best of all, they bloom on Mother’s Day so I get that special gift and lasting memory every year.

I like to check out the meaning behind flowers, and they have interesting stories that make the flowers even more special. There’s an interesting Christian story behind forget-me-nots that touched me.

It says that God was walking in the Garden of Eden and came across a small blue flower. He asked it what its name was, and the shy flower said it didn’t remember. God told the flower he would name it Forget Me Not so he wouldn’t forget it. That story was significant to me because we didn’t know its name either when we saw the seedlings, at least not its American name, and the other stories about that little blue flower say it’s the flower of remembrance and true love.

I hope from this story that flowers will talk to you, not just of their beauty and fragrance, but of their meaning. And, if you have a flower garden, you know that most flowers spread and invade other plants — don’t just weed out the extras, share them with your friends, and your memory will blossom for them every year.

Carole Gariepy lives in Phillipston. 

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