A Potted Plant for Mama

I've been thinking a lot about my Mom. She passed away more than two years ago and small things jog my memory. Lately, there have been LOTS of things. I'm not sure why; no birthdays or holidays are approaching. Nevertheless, she's on my mind.

Often, she comes to mind when my husband asks a cooking question. In a condescending tone I'll say, "Come on, everyone knows *that*. " Then I realize that I didn't spring from the womb knowing it either ... somewhere along the way, my Mama taught me. I learned so much from her without even realizing it.

This post will be long, but I'm including a story I wrote about my Mom another time I couldn't stop thinking about her. I read this in church my first Mother's Day without her. The style may seem awkward since it was written for the ear, not the eye.

I was watering the plant today, and I got it! I finally understood.

I've watered this plant at least 50 times. It doesn’t look so pretty, but it keeps living. It was mangled by my emotionally disturbed cat soon after I brought it home. Luckily, my husband found a plant stand and lifted it above paws’ reach.

While watering, I started to think about my Mom, or “Mama” as I called her. Everyone in the Deep South calls their mother “Mama,” or at least everyone I know does. Mama was, above all, unique… and one unique quality was her preference for a potted plant over cut flowers. I never understood that! I thought my boring old Mama was the most unromantic woman in the world – she only allowed Daddy to bring her yellow roses once a year on their anniversary.

She not-so-subtly urged us, “if you’re after buying flowers for me, I’d really prefer a potted plant.” I was nine years old when I asked her why, and she said, “Baby, big bouquets of flowers are awfully pretty, I’ll give you that. But they’re only pretty for a few days. Then they die, and you have to throw them out. I think potted plants are just as pretty and they’ll last as long as you love and care for them.”

There were plenty of things about Mama I didn’t understand, so I just filed that one to the back of the growing list. Then today, I finally got it.

At 29 years old, while watering a plant that had been a gift from my parents' next door neighbors, the Graces, it all came clear.

That situation's not unusual in small town Mississippi – neighbors do nice things for each other every day, especially during hard times. However, Mama had been bed-ridden for years and Daddy and Rev. Grace were locked in a feud that would have made a great Beverly Hillbillies episode. It was a land dispute in which both neighbors had been using the same driveway with only one maintaining it.

This was a small dispute. Certainly two grown men (both pastors, no less) should have solved it. However, since they were both from an earlier generation, and the Graces are a different color than we are, hurt feelings escalated and the situation became more complicated than it should have. I have to shake my head when I say, it ended with Daddy building a fence down the middle of the old driveway and building a new one on his side.

Mostly, I shake my head because I KNOW -beyond a shadow of a doubt- that Mama wouldn’t have let him do it!! Had this happened twenty years earlier, I know exactly how she would have solved the problem.

She would have made one of her fabulous chocolate pies (they looked awful if the butter separated and rose to the top - but Mama said pies are for eating, not admiring) and she would have taken it to the Graces' house. In my imagination I see her concocting a plan. I almost hear her say, “Deborah, these men of ours are awfully prideful, but I know how we can fix it. If you and I are friends, they’ll have to get along. It will make them crazy!” In my imagination, I hear two women laughing over slices of pie with the soft clinking of coffee cups on saucers in the background.

I know what you’re thinking. That scene is all in my imagination, but I watched LaNita Pepper in action enough to know what she'd do.

One scene I could never have imagined began a hot Saturday last August when the phone rang. It was my brother, Jeff, and he said, “Baby, do you have a cup of coffee in your hand?” I said, “not yet,” and he replied, “you’re gonna need one soon. Sit down, Baby. It’s over.”

He didn’t have to explain. Years of Mama’s trips to the hospital left the whole family on edge. Each of us pondered the end and wondered what it would be like once it was over. It was a bitter-sweet loss. Although our hearts wrenched from losing her, there was no comparison between how she felt in wheelchairs and hospital beds and how she feels in the arms of her Jesus.

Bryan and I made the trip to Mississippi and attended the visitation, funeral, and graveside service performed by my oldest brother, Doug. Then we went back into the fellowship hall to grieve like all good southern Methodists do, with enough food to burn a wet squirrel.

Giving the grieving family massive amounts of food is a tradition that I’m sure happens in all small towns, but it’s an art form in Webster County, Mississippi. If your cousin’s step-daddy’s aunt’s great grandmother on her mama’s side’s best friend dies, it’s time to cook!

We get through death with the life-sustaining act of sharing meals— we elevate the everyday, necessary act of eating to a ritual that binds us together, and reminds us that in the midst of death there is life. Much like Christ instructed the disciples to do just before He died. (You know, only with fried chicken and sweet tea. )

Back at the funeral home we divided up the flowers and plants. At the base of one corner of the casket there was a peace lilly. I spotted it at the visitation and read the card – “from Deborah and the Grace family.” 'Wow," I thought. A Peace Lilly from Deborah and the Grace family. I decided to make sure that plant came to Indiana with me, where I would love and care for it like Mama would have wanted.

We went back to home to divide up the chores. Bryan mowed Daddy’s two acres of lawn, and I tracked down addresses and wrote thank-you cards for the flowers and food. I made a stack of envelopes to be mailed but put one aside. Daddy picked it up and asked, “Did we run out of stamps?” I said, “no, it's going to be hand-delivered.”

While he drove to the post office, Bryan, Jeff and I went next door. We were indiscribably moved by this loving gift from a woman who forgave in the most difficult of circumstances: in the absence of an apology. I wasn’t sure how we’d be received, but when we introduced ourselves, she smiled and said, “I’m so happy to see you all! I don’t know Brother Pepper that well. I know he grew up in another generation, and things were different back then; but I just try to see him as God sees him - and older man caring for his dying wife.”

Well, all four of us stood on her front porch and cried in broad daylight. I hugged her at least five times because I didn’t know what to say. We were awed by her generous spirit, and vowed to someday build a gate between the two houses.

As I finished watering this ragged plant, I took a closer look. It hasn’t bloomed in months - I think it was too traumatized by close encounters of the kitty kind. But I realized why my mother favored potted plants over cut flower. I was enjoying this plant (and reliving memories of my mother) months after receiving it. I'd started to worry about getting through Mother’s day without Mama, then I saw all the gifts of love and wisdom that live on.

I was privileged to see the reflection of Christ in a woman called Grace, the unconditional forgiveness in a lilly called Peace, and a strong mother never enticed by fleeting beauty, but who valued lasting things and chose the life that conquers death. In heaven and in my heart, she lives on.