Rain Lily

I must apologize for my absense on the blog, but this has not been a good week for me.

At 11.30 pm Tuesday, my Mother passed away, and I was, understandably, terribly upset.

I won't go into the details here, but the last year of her life hasn't been the best, she was getting progresively weaker. This is in many ways a release.

But I wasn't able to get on the blog much. The week has proceeded in a surreal kind of clarity. Today, the sun came out, after a solid week of rain, and I was able to finally come back to reality.

These helped... The Zephyrantes candida, also know as Fairy lily, Toad lily or Rain lily have burst into bloom, just as they do every late summer and autumn after every heavy rain.

They spend much of their existence looking much like a row of Monkey Grass, but thier white, crocus-like blooms explode almost overnight.

These were blooming when my father died 5 years ago. September isn't the best of months for our family.

I was sitting outside under the willow tree today and I looked over to these blooms, and I remembered that after he'd passed, Mother and I were sitting in almost the exact same spot, looking at these flowers when she told me, "Life is for the living. It's time we got on with it."

Mother was a little on the blunt side. Not as blunt as my Grandmother, who once told one of my aunts, "You can't crawl into the grave with him, so keep going and your turn will come soon enough," but these flowers, the late summer sunshine and that memory have worked together to remind me that I was still alive. In many ways it doesn't seem fair, but life isn't. Yes I will mourn, and yes I will miss my Mother, but she gave me a lot of love and caring when she was here, and did everything she could to make me a strong person, and it will not honor her if I don't keep going, and hopefully pass that love, caring and strength on to someone else.

Not the most cheerful of posts.