30: 04: 2026
Over the weekend, I visited my ageing mother.
We sat beneath the generous shade of the old mango tree in her compound, a place where time seems to move more slowly. Over a steaming cup of tea, she began narrating stories from a season of life I barely remember but one she recalls with startling clarity.
She spoke of nights when I cried endlessly as a toddler, and how she stayed awake nursing me through them. She reminded me of the paper football games that often ended with wounded toes, and how she patiently cleaned and dressed those little injuries as though they were battle scars from some great war. She recalled carrying me on her back to nursery school and church, her steady steps becoming my first journey through the world.
Then she laughed as she remembered the countless times she had to discipline me when youthful mischief got the better of my judgment. Those whippings, which once felt like injustice, now stand revealed as careful pruning. She reminded me of the quiet conversations we had as I grew older about my future, my career, the family I would one day build. And she spoke of moments when my thoughts wandered into uncertainty, and how she gently steered me back toward purpose.
As I listened, it struck me that before I ever understood flowers, farms or growth, I had already known my first grower.
This woman planted values before I understood their worth. She pruned my excesses with a sternness I only later recognized as wisdom. She watered dreams that often seemed too fragile to survive. Through every uncertain season, she remained rooted.
And so, if I were to design a Mother’s Day bouquet for her this year, it would tell that story.
At its heart would be soft pink roses for gratitude, white lilies for devotion, yellow spray roses for warmth and laughter, lavender statice for remembrance, deep purple carnations for wisdom, and delicate baby’s breath for everlasting love.
Together, they would say what words often struggle to express: Thank you for being the first garden in which I grew, and the first grower who nurtured me.
This Mother’s Day, I invite all Floriweek readers to send that same message.
To our mothers, the women who nurtured us through every season, you remain life’s rarest bloom.