FACES IN THE FLOWERS

Several years ago, my mother was involved in a terrible motorcycle accident and was hospitalized for over nine months so I moved my daughter and myself into her house to look after things for her.

My mother is a prolific flower-gardener. Having been raised around flowers all of my life, I thought most people knew what, say, delphiniums or ranunculas were. . . It wasn't until much later in life (after I went to work for a nursery) that I discovered most people can't tell a peony from a petunia!

One afternoon, I was weeding a small patch of my mother's Johnny Jump-Up violas whose tiny, flat, yellow and purple blossoms look very much like miniature pansies. We've all heard people describe pansies and violas as giving the appearance of having little faces. (There's even a pansy mix called Faces.) Indeed, on most of these flowers you can find tiny black marks that do resemble eyes or eyelashes.

Anyway, I was down on my knees pulling the weeds from around these quaint little flowers when one in particular caught my eye. I leaned down to inspect it more closely with the nagging feeling that I recognized something about it and, finally realizing what it was, I said right out loud, Why, it looks just like Mom!

I quickly glanced up to make certain that no one was watching and admonished myself for having such a silly, silly thought.

C'mon now, I told myself, Get a grip, girl!

I chuckled, shook off the strange feeling and continued with my weeding.

A couple of minutes later, though, another viola blossom drew my attention and I was so startled by this one that I almost leapt to my feet!

Thankfully the flower didn't look a thing like my mother. It did, however, bear an eerie resemblance to my daughter!

I swear to you - as weird as it sounds - before I'd finished weeding that day, I'd recognized at least three more family members or close friends whose facial features were somehow etched into the DNA of my mother's Johnny Jump-Ups!

Afterwards, I shrugged the whole episode off as one of those things and tried never to think about it again until about five years later when I was perusing an English book on gardening from the 1700s online. . .

There - practically, well, jumping up at me from the page - was a paragraph claiming that pansies and violas often reflect the facial features of the people who live in the house nearest-by!

Don't believe me?

Then I suggest you take a closer look at the faces in your own flowers. You just might find someone there you recognize. . .

Learn more about this author, Jean C. Fisher.
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