Flowers in the Journey of life

As I have gotten older I often reflect back on my parents and the kind of people they were. My dad, I think was a thistle, tall, handsome, and prickly. He was raised on a farm surrounded by relatives and people he had known since birth; families that had been through hard times together. Seventeen families had moved all of their livestock and house hold goods from the cotton land of East Alabama when the boll weevil destroyed their cotton, their major source of income to the East side of the Alabama Delta. When my mother met him he was a trapper of furs. In others words, he was just having fun and just making enough money for his own needs. He was still living at home. His idea of a date was gigging frogs and then cooking them to eat. We are talking about big swamp frogs here not everyday garden frogs.

My mother on the other hand was a Marigold. She was bright, very pretty and helpful to those around her. She was raised in the hills and gullies of central Alabama. She was raised by a single mother after the age of sixteen as her father was struck by lightening walking up the path in their front yard to the porch and died six months later of complications of that lightening strike. My mother, her sister and her two brothers were then raised by a community of relatives. My Grandmother's brother was into education and when it was time; he made arrangements for each of them to go to college. Her youngest brother chose to go into the Civilian Conservation Core and then later into the military. My mother went to Livingston, which was a teacher's college. My dad went to college at the University of Alabama. For one day, he liked to say, before he got the wanderlust to go the to the World's Fair in Chicago. He hitchhiked there. He met many people on his travel that became life long friends.

My mother, on the other hand was studying science, math and particularly botany. She loved nature. When I was a child, she would take us on walks through the woods teaching us the names of flowers, grasses, and trees. She was also very good in math, producing children that were also good in math. Most of us loved to to learn.

So how did these two unlikely individuals in two different places meet? Remember my Grandmother's brother, my great Uncle, well he was the superintendent of Education in the county where my dad, Thistle, lived. He needed teachers as he thought that education should be available to children where they lived, not bussed for miles to schools . He had placed schools in most small towns in the county, therefore the need for teachers. He recruited Marigold, my mother, to a small community with a one room school house. There were a lot of children in this community. People had big families then. They worked on their farms and the children were involved in the working of the farm. They learned how to work and have responsibility. There were too many children for the one room school house so churches were open for class rooms and in some cases private homes were used. Mama's class was in a private home. She also boarded in a private home. There was another teacher who boarded there. Her name was Sarah so it was natural that they formed a friendship. Sarah wanted Marigold to meet her brother so that is how marigold and thistle met!

I have pictures of them climbing the gully's of central Alabama, mama looking for fossils while daddy is looking at mama. This is a most unlikely pairing. I can just see it now in the garden. Thistle gently swaying in the breeze, standing high above the ground enjoying the wind on his leaves, happy with life; looking down on the garden around him when he spies Marigold. " Wow! How have I missed her", he thought, "she is beautiful. How can I get her to notice me."

Marigold although beautiful is rather short but she doesn't let that stop her. She is busy seeing about those around her. You see, she is about helping others, she cares about who they are, what they think, and what they care about. All these things keep her busy.

Marigold's put off a certain scent that is pungent to some insects like aphids, so are useful for use in flower beds as well as the garden to protect other plants from this insect. They also add beauty to both types of gardens. Flowers in a vegetable garden also encourages pollination of the vegetables. So Marigold not only added beauty but was helpful to the garden

That was my mother! Always a hard worker but forever on watch for a way to help those around her. She taught us many life skills as well as what is right and what is wrong. She taught us manners, and the Bible. She taught us to read from a Bible story book, so that most of us knew how to read before we started school. She taught us to work and to do the best job that we could do. She taught us to enjoy doing whatever it was that we were doing. She had a love of life that was contagious. She loved life God and country and taught her children not only the Bible but the history of our country and to respect others. She was fun to be around. teaching was second nature to her. She taught us all about life, making decisions and the consequences of those decisions. She was a gift in the garden of life, so her name was appropriate.

So how did they meet? We know that daddy had already seen mama but mama was just too busy to notice daddy, no matter how handsome he was.

The smallest of things can make a big impact on our lives You would never guess. One day a blue winged dragon fly, or in our neck of woods it is called a mosquito hawk, landed on her face. She looked up with laughter in her eyes, watching as the dragon fly darted in the wind. She followed his flight with her eyes. He flew to thistle and their eyes met. The rest is history.