The Glad Game

It’s gladiolus season. And I am playing

today, finding all of the ways I can photograph a few stems of these glorious flowers.

My mother always grew gladioli in her garden. It was the one flower that she actually planted in the garden, not in the many flower beds around the house. And she loved August when she cut bouquets of gladioli throughout the month.

Though her life as a farm wife included long days of hard physical labor cooking, doing laundry, ironing clothes, sewing, cleaning house, canning and preserving food, and many more chores, she always found time to plant flowers and to pick them and create bouquets.

A Love of Flowers

I think I probably got my love of flowers from watching her and from her encouragement when I wanted to plant a flower garden of my own. The flowers my mother grew included iris, peonies, lilies of the valley, zinnias, poppies, tiger lilies, phlox, geraniums, clematis, petunias, columbine, larkspur, canna, roses, baby’s breath, and gladiolus. I often wondered how she kept up the large garden we had as well as all the flowers. Many summer evenings after the supper dishes were done she would head to the garden to weed while everyone else in the family sat in front of the television set. I know that I could not have done the kind of day-in day-out physical work that she did.

Just breathing isn’t living!
― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

I think that she planted and tended all of her flowers because she needed something of her own, something beautiful, something that had no practical use in her life. Once when she was living in assisted living and refused to go out for walks or to do much but sit in her chair, I encouraged her to move more telling her that if she didn’t she would soon not be able to. She told me in no uncertain terms, “I worked hard my whole life since I was nine years old, doing what had to be done. I’m tired and I don’t have to do anything now. I’m going to enjoy not doing anything right here in this chair.”

Needless to say, I never tried to get her to exercise again. Knowing how hard she worked all her life and how she did it without complaining, I could feel nothing but gratitude. Though I too, worked hard from about the age of 9 or 10 doing a lot of cooking, dish washing, cleaning, laundry, ironing and other chores, she allowed me time to play with my cousins, read books, and wander in nature as well. And I also was able to get an education that she only dreamed of. My brothers and I were the first generation in our family to attend college.

The Need for Both Work and Play

We all need a balance of work and play in our lives and to find something to be glad about. Now, more than ever I think we need to be intentional to include gratitude and choose joy in a world that is so rapidly changing.