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Books About Life on a Farm Written Especially for People Who Like to Read! "Highly recommended reading." The Midwest Book Review Reviews & Readers' Comments |
LeAnn R. Ralph Rural Route 2 Author E6689 970th Ave. Colfax, WI 54730 (715) 308-6336 |
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by LeAnn R. Ralph "I suppose I'd better cut the rest of the gladiolus and bring them inside," I said to my husband one September evening when the weather report said it might freeze. "Good idea," Randy replied. I went from bed to bed, snipping off flower stalks, and then I arranged them in a big, glass vase. "Those are really something," my husband commented, admiring the long stalks of flowers in varying degrees of bloom. "Beautiful," I agreed. "My mother loved glads, especially the yellow ones. Yellow was her favorite color." I like all the colors of glads, myself. Delicate pink. Salmon. Yellow. Vermilion. Red. And then there's the white fringed with pale lavender centers. There's just something about the lacy-looking white glads that reminds me of brides and wedding gowns. When I was growing up, we always had gladiolus planted around the farm. And as the bulbs grew and multiplied, we accumulated more and more to plant. One year, Mom asked Dad if he would dig a bed along the south side of the barn for the gladiolus. "Sure," Dad said. "They ought to do well there." I wasn't very old at the time, but I was old enough to plant gladiolus bulbs. That's one of the things my mother liked about them. They're easy to grow, and while she enjoyed having a few flowers around, she never claimed to have a green thumb. And because of the polio, it was difficult for my mother to plant flowers, too. So as I grew older, planting glads became one of my jobs. And I can remember so clearly planting those glads along the barn. Digging the holes. Dropping in the bulbs. Waiting for them to grow. And they did grow. Very well. They loved it by the barn. As the end of summer drew near, a gorgeous profusion of glads bloomed, their colors making a striking contrast against the white barn wall. My mother could see the flowers from the kitchen window, and almost every day, she commented on how pretty they were. And then my mother suffered a stroke. In fact, she suffered several strokes in the years after that, most of them rather minor, but enough to make reading more difficult for her. I'm sure you can imagine how frightened I was, with my mother in the hospital. She had been 42 when I was born, and although I knew she wasn't really all that old, I also knew people died in hospitals, and I was afraid my mother was going to die - before I could see her again. Then one evening my sister, who is 20 years older than I am, got ready to visit Mom and I struck upon a wonderful idea. "Can I come, too?" I begged. "Plllleeeease?" I hadn't gone to the hospital yet. Mom had asked at first that I not be brought because she was afraid visiting her might be too traumatic for me. (I'm not sure how old I was, but somewhere around 8 or 9). "Sure," Loretta said, after hesitating a few moments. "And can we bring Mom some glads?" My sister paused once again. "Of course. I think she'd probably like that." I went out to the bed by the barn and cut stalk after stalk of flowers, all different colors, but I included as many yellow ones as I could find because I knew yellow was Mom's favorite color. And then my sister and I arranged them in a glass jar. "What beautiful flowers," the nurse commented, as we walked into my mother's hospital room. "Where did you buy them?" "We didn't," I said, proudly. "We grew them ourselves. On our farm." "That's right," Mom said, "and she planted every bulb herself." I was afraid to look at my mother, knowing that she'd asked I not be brought to the hospital. But when I did finally look at Mom, she smiled - and held out her arms. And as my mother's arms closed around me, I felt an incredible sense of relief, as if I knew, then, that everything would be all right. That she was not going to die soon... Ever since that summer, every time I see gladiolus I think of Mom. And although my mother passed away many years ago, I hope she can still see the gladiolus, too - wherever she is - especially the yellow ones. |
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