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There are many kinds of love and the story below reflects the love that has stood the test of time between a babysitter and the little boy she helped guide to school age. It tells of the love and respect his mother had for the babysitter who took care of both her precious little boys and the way she demonstrated it often was with flowers, both fresh for vases or those to be planted in a garden.

That little boy will graduate next year. He called me "Mur-Mur" I am still "Mur-Mur" to them all. A nickname I think, showing much love and affection and a deep bond between me and them. Hopefully someday I will see him and his little brother become pillars of society and maybe just maybe they can say I had a little a part in that. This story is about one flower she brought me that really turned into an act of love to many more than just the one she brought it to.

A Lily Down in the Valley

It all started with babysitting Kyle, a little boy from a wonderful couple in the neighborhood. My kids were grown and away at college. He was precious and his mother, a school teacher, was just as sweet and not much older than my son and daughter. They were so easy to love.

She and Kyle brought me a white lily for Mother's day. Two or three flowering blooms on a healthy hearty stalk. So delicate they looked more like orchids and were just as perfect as if made and handed straight down from God's garden above. A gift of love from them to me. A gift I loved and couldn't wait until I added it to my flower bed.

I nurtured, watered, and fed my lily appropriately. I planted it in the ground. The next spring I had more flowering blooms and more hearty green stems and leaves than I ever imagined. Year after year it was like that. I began out of love to give friends, family, and neighbors bulbs from the original until now there are many who have grand lilies and great grand lilies from my Mother of all lilies. She has spread her beauty as far as three different states and small gardens all around my own area.

Now, at the present time she is beginning to look frail in my own garden. Did I spread her too thin? Did I give away too many of her offspring that it hurt her delicate condition beyond healing? I surely hope not for she has been with me now for nearly 15 years and I sure hate to see her leave me. I will once again begin to nurture, protect and guard her from adverse conditions and hope that good health will return to her in the spring where I will allow her to once again flourish, if she will find the spirit to begin anew and I will try to avoid taking away her offspring too soon.

Hopefully she will feel love and security in her own little space and produce for me again as many as three dozen white lilies as she did for many years, unblemished and perfect in their own little bed. Perhaps I can take a picture and separate just one more little bulb that will be a gift from me to Kyle when he graduates from High School in the spring, or better yet a gift for his mother. Yes, a gift of love to his mother that has come full circle, from the gift of love and appreciation that she gave me so many years ago.

Learn more about this author, Mary E. Preece.
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