My wife Beth remarked that the daylily in our backyard is doing very well. It has a history. Maybe ten years ago, a colleague in Akron loved flowers and gave us this type of daylily called Rose Emily, because our daughter is named Emily. We kept it at our Akron home, then we moved it in our car when we came to St. Louis in 2009. Later, we moved from our first St. Louis house to our present one, and the plant came along. We also moved a rose from Akron, but it died, while the daylily is still doing well.
The plant's name reminds me of the time Emily came home from middle school and said, "We read this creepy story in class today, about this old lady who poisoned her lover, and she had my name…." Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," of course.
Earlier in our family adventures, we moved another, special plant. Emily's very first summer camp was at the historic Farmington home in Louisville, KY, and she brought home a mint plant. We planted it in our yard, and then when we moved to Akron a few years later, we brought the mint along. Our Akron home was on a lake, and we planted the mint in the fertile soil near the lake. Unfortunately it didn't survive when the lake overflowed its banks after a heavy rain, but the mint was a nice reminder of her first summer camp for nearly fourteen years. I loved to rub its leaves and smell that distinctive aroma on my fingertips.
No comments:
Post a Comment