Spring flowers bring memories

All photos from flickr.com

This could be a picture of my yard. I always remember how much Mom wanted a forsythia bush, so much so that I tried several times to find one for her and plant it. One year I took canes from my bushes and put special grow-stuff on the tips, wrapping them in wet newspaper so that Mom and Dad could take them home and plant them. There are so many around here that they seem to grow wild. But either Dad never got them planted or they didn't grow, so now whenever I see a forsythia in bloom, I think of Mom and how much she enjoyed that first burst of spring color -- and how much I wish I'd gotten those forsythia bushes planted for her while she was still with us.

Red bud is my favorite flowering tree, and it was always Gramp's favorite too, I think. Or else I'm recalling that he called Grammie "bud" and confusing it with his love of the red bud. Last year, Beth was describing her favorite tree to me, and guess what it is? The beautiful red bud tree, of course!
I think it's because the delicate flowers seem to sprout right out of that black bark, making a contrast that looks like delicate lace.

And, speaking of Beth, she loves hyacinths too. And blue hydrangeas. So this one is for you, daughter-girl.
I've always loved the simple, ordinary daffodil. I used to tell my kids that I wanted my ashes scattered in a bed of daffodils so that the bone meal would nourish them, literally making me live again. I told them that every time they saw a daffodil after I was gone, they would know that it was their mom, watching (over) them. They are the most lovely when they grow in clumps, bravely showing their faces long before the last frost.

Do you have a favorite flower? For those of you who haven't experienced Spring in the mid-Atlantic area, I send you this bouquet of spring flowers and wish you were here to see the slow unfolding of what looks a lot like hope to me.