Why You Should Save Those Dead Flowers When Mother’s Day Is Over

My firstborn once gave me dead flowers on Mother’s Day.

I knew his perfect gift was at risk of being foiled when he’d raced into the kitchen and asked me for a box.

I could see splashes of yellow and purple peeking through his slender fingers on those hands crossed slyly behind his back. 

And even though I was trying not to look at the bouquet of wildflowers my four-year-old had just picked from the field in our backyard, I couldn’t help but notice the drizzle of green leaves dropping to the floor at his heels.

Standing there in the kitchen with a clump of volunteer daisies and a goofy grin stretched from ear to ear, my little man looked like a starry-eyed Romeo ready to drop to his knees.

But his twinkle dissolved when I asked why he needed a box.

“Mom, I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.” His baby blues bore into mine. “‘Cause tomorrow’s, ya know… Mother’s Day.”

I feigned shock and glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall near the refrigerator. “Really? It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow?”

Luke danced happy and squealed, “Ye-es, don’t you ‘member anything, Mom?”

My two-year-old toddled into the room with a saggy diaper, and I scooped her up and sniffed her bottom. 

“Oh, my, you need a change.” 

Lizzy squirmed out of my arms and waddled away while her brother tapped the table with his knuckles as a reminder of our unfinished business.

“Mom, I really need a box. Could you please get me one?” 

My firstborn didn’t smell any better than his diaper-dragging sister. Dirt streaks highlighted his flushed cheeks and threads of prairie grass clung to his filthy knees.  

And though he would have normally just bolted through the house oblivious to the trail he was leaving in his wake, on this Mother’s Day Eve, he stood plastered to the rug just inside the kitchen door.

“Mom? Are you gonna get it for me? The box.” Luke swayed from side to side, jittery with impatience. 

I could only imagine what those silky petals would look like after they’d slept all night beneath a cardboard lid. 

I was stuck in the perfect quandary. Either I could deflate my son’s joy on the spot or let his precious plan be spoiled in the morning.

 I opted for the latter.

“I’ll check if we have a box,” I said,  “But would you rather have something else?”

I grabbed a glass vase from the cupboard above the counter, filled it with tap water, and set it nonchalantly on the counter between us.

Luke eyed the vase with little interest.

“Like what, Mom?”

He stomped impatiently on the rainbow-striped rug and waited for me to finish my sentence.

“Umm…maybe…” I scrambled for an idea, but fell short. 

My firstborn shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I really just need a box.”  

A golden petal floated to the floor behind him. “And maybe some wrapping paper….”

I eyed my boy and gave him a mock salute, then headed to the basement to secure a shoe box and a shiny piece of left-over Christmas wrap.

Luke smiled gratefully when I returned with the requested supplies, and after shedding his grassy shoes and allowing me to scrub his muddy nose; he raced to his bedroom to do something important.

A few moments later, he scuttled back to the kitchen, grabbed a roll of Scotch tape and scampered to his room once more, humming merrily.

The next morning, when Mother’s Day dawned pink with a slit of sunlight, my giddy gift-giver tiptoed into our room with a lumpy, bumpy box.

He climbed into bed beside me and bounced on the mattress to rouse me from sleep.

“Happy Mother’s day, Mommy!” he said, poking at my poke-a-dot pajamas. “This is for you.” 

He waggled the shoe box in front of my face.

 I propped myself up on a pillow and tried to rub the sleep from my eyes. 

“Wow, look at this beautiful box,“ I gushed as I tugged at the globs of tape wound methodically around the tinseled red paper.

“I wonder what’s in it…” 

I fixed one eye on my firstborn and another on my husband stretching lazily beside me.

Luke sing-songed, “You’ll never ever guess; never ever guess.”

Finally, I untangled the tape wads, lifted the shoebox lid and peered inside.

There, just as I’d suspected, was a bundle of brittle brown blooms perched atop my big boy’s favorite yellow baby blankie.

My son’s joy dissolved as he eyed the colorless spray. 

His bouncing slowed and he squatted quiet at my side.

Confused, he stuck his nose in the box and inhaled deeply in search of yesterday’s field-fresh scent.

When he lifted his head, Luke flashed his dad a panicked gaze.

I scooped the dead flowers out of the box and thanked my son for his thoughtfulness. 

“Did you pick these beauties all by yourself?“ I asked, adding a measure of amazement to my voice in hopes of lifting my preschooler’s sagging shoulders. 

 I pressed my lips to his ears and whispered, “How did you know I love flowers?”

Luke shrugged and humbly accepted my gratitude.

He studied the brown blooms in my hand and then, suddenly, his face brightened.

He stood up on the bed and danced around me, making the pillows jump like grasshoppers on a summer’s day.

“I knew you’d love them,” he bragged as he pointed to the dung-colored petals. “‘Cause they’re brown, just like your hair!“

While my proud son finished his victory boogie, my husband stared at the dark roots of my she-still-thinks-she’s a-blonde hair and tried not to burst into laughter.

Then, as I ran my fingers through my tangled morning mop (my fake-blonde morning mop), my man promptly rolled out of bed, grabbed Luke’s hand, and hurried out of the bedroom mumbling something about bringing Mom breakfast in bed to salvage the morning.

I didn’t save those brown blooms. But I wish I had.

I wish I’d pressed them in my prayer journal or kept them in the overflowing box of keepsakes under my bed.

photo credit

Because more than the vibrant greenhouse blooms that are sitting on my table this morning (thanks to a husband who uses vases rather than boxes), those brittle petals picked with love long ago remind me of the hard but freeing truth about being a mom.

Though motherhood is certainly filled with moments of dazzling color- smoochy red i-love-yous and royal purple hugs; sky-blue giggles and soft gold cuddles; motherhood is also filled with a whole bunch of brown. 

Motherhood is a get-your-hands-dirty-kind of holy-calling.

It’s a marathon of wiping bottoms and noses and floors.

And reading Green Eggs and Ham 1000 times.

And folding superhero underwear when you’d rather be unfolding a new dream.

It’s taming toddler tantrums. And teenage tantrums.

And holding puke buckets and clammy bodies wrought with fever. 

Motherhood is sleeping with one ear tuned to a baby’s cry. Or a teenager’s footsteps.

It’s cramming your whole body into the bottom bunk to ward off a little one’s nightmares and cramming prayer into all the cracks and crevices of a never-ending day.

It’s applauding pot-and-pan band concerts.  And humming lull-a-byes.

And dancing on dirty kitchen floors and singing The Wheels on the Bus over and over in the mini-van until you feel like you may need to be wheeled to the nearest asylum before the day is done.

Hallmark hasn’t come close to capturing the true colors of  motherhood.

Because motherhood is a whole lot more brown than those dazzling greeting cards that are still propped up on my kitchen counter. 

And maybe that’s why we wonder what’s wrong with us when this thing called parenting feels incredibly hard and sometimes just plain ol’ boring.

Maybe that’s why we carry around invisible knapsacks of guilt and we fear that we’ll never be enough.  

Because nobody ever bothered to tell us that there would be days when we’d want to run away. Or at least go back to bed and hide under the covers a little longer.

Nobody told us that motherhood would be so brown.

 But what those dried out daisies would remind me, if I’d been wise enough to save them, is this:

•  There is beauty in the brown.
•  A sage artist knows that an ordinary patch of brown is made by a blend of vibrant colors.
•  Brown is the perfect combination of red and yellow and blue all swirled together to make the color of earth and dirt.
•  Brown is yellow and purple and orange merged to create the hue of mighty tree trunks and the dark rich soil that holds their roots.

 An artist knows that brown is beautiful.

And a mother knows the same. 

A wise mother knows that if she slows her soul long enough to LOOK through the eyes of the Master Artist, she will spy glory in the grit. 

Sloppy kisses spilling from dirty faces. 

Laugh-out-loud moments in the sticky madness. 

Prayers of faith rising from the bottom of those filthy toes all the way to Heaven’s throne.

Hallmark may paint motherhood in strokes of happy pink and streaks of dazzling blue.  But the One who grows joy from sorrow and beauty from ashes may paint motherhood in hues of brown. 

And when we sink our roots deep into the soil of His heart; when we die to ourselves and let Him love those dirty feet right through our feeble hands; we find colors of joy we’ve never imagined.

So, go ahead!  Leave that Mother’s Day bouquet sitting on your kitchen table long after the color has faded. Collect the brittle leaves like they’re going out of style.

And on those days when you’re longing for life in brighter hues, shred the Hallmark card and cling to what you know is true.

Motherhood is a gift of dazzling grace wrapped in shades of brown. 

Beautiful brown, kind of like a bouquet of wildflowers hiding in a shoe box.

Linking up with these beautiful women: Emily at Imperfect Prose, Jennifer for Tell His Story, Beth for Wedded Wednesdays, and Jill for Hearts at Home’s Third Thursday Thoughts, and Jen for soli deo gloria.