The White Carnation: A Mother’s Day Remembrance

What is the great­est les­son you learned from your mother or a mom like fig­ure in your life?

When I was grow­ing up, there were a num­ber of dif­fer­ent types of flow­ers in the yard of our fam­ily home. My mother was a won­der­ful gar­dener who tended to her pink car­na­tions, red and yel­low roses, pink gera­ni­ums, camel­lias, and many other varieties.

So when my fifth grade teacher announced that we would be mak­ing a spe­cial gift for our moth­ers — a con­struc­tion paper greet­ing card and a car­na­tion fash­ioned from facial tis­sue — I knew that I wanted to present my mother with some­thing unique. When faced with a choice between pink or white tis­sue, I chose white. After all, my mother grew beau­ti­ful pink car­na­tions in our back­yard, so I thought she would be more impressed by and appre­ci­ate receiv­ing some­thing she did not have — a white carnation.

The teacher did not explain to the class at the out­set that pink car­na­tions are sup­posed to be pre­sented to your mother on Mother’s Day, but a white car­na­tion sig­ni­fies honor paid to a deceased mother. (I had never heard of that tra­di­tion before … nor have I heard it since.)

So I worked dili­gently on my card and faux car­na­tion, and was quite pleased with my effort. That is, until my teacher saw that I had cho­sen white, rather than pink. It was then that she told me about the custom.

And that was when I felt ter­ri­ble because I would be pre­sent­ing my mother with an inap­pro­pri­ate gift. It never occurred to me that my mother would not have heard of that social more. After all, at that point in my life, I still believed that my mother knew every­thing about every con­ceiv­able topic.

I remem­ber com­ing home from school and being reluc­tant to give my mother the gift I had made for her. I did not want to hurt her feel­ings in any way by pre­sent­ing her with an unsuit­able gift. Finally, I decided I could no longer avoid giv­ing her the card and flower, and resolved to apol­o­gize to her for not mak­ing a pink carnation.

To my sur­prise, she had never heard of the tra­di­tion. I can still hear her voice, in fact: “Well, I’ve cer­tainly never heard of such a rule. I like car­na­tions in any color. And I’ve never seen a car­na­tion made from Kleenex before. This is very clever. Thank you!”

She proudly dis­played the card with the oth­ers she received that day and placed the arti­fi­cial car­na­tion in a vase on the table in the spot on our kitchen table usu­ally reserved for bou­quets of real flow­ers from our garden.

After she died, we went through her belong­ings. aI found that card in a box, tucked away for years along with many other school projects she had saved over the decades. The tis­sue car­na­tion was not there, but I was nei­ther sur­prised nor dis­ap­pointed because I’m sure that, over time, it disintegrated.

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. (Erich Fromm)

To this day, I remem­ber that expe­ri­ence each and every Mother’s Day and every time I see a white car­na­tion. Why? Because my mother’s behav­ior was a per­fect exam­ple of uncon­di­tional love, dis­re­gard for social con­ven­tion, and appre­ci­a­tion of a gift made with love and freely given, even if the gift-giver acknowl­edged that it was flawed in some way.

I was afraid to show her that the car­na­tion was — pur­port­edly, at least — the “wrong” color, but she loved it, any­way. In the same man­ner, she loved me no mat­ter what I did, even though I fre­quently dis­ap­pointed and per­plexed her, espe­cially in my late teens and early twen­ties. She loved me even when she thought I was mak­ing destruc­tive life choices or hang­ing out with the “wrong crowd.” She loved me when I dis­re­spected and dis­re­garded her. She loved me when I didn’t call or visit as often as I should, pre­fer­ring to spend time with my friends. She loved me when I rolled my eyes to let her know that I thought she was not smart enough to under­stand me or the world in which I lived, and laughed with me in her later years when she recalled those moments not with spite or bit­ter­ness, but amuse­ment as she watched me strug­gle to raise my own chil­dren. As I was grow­ing up, when she was com­pletely exas­per­ated with me, she would say, “I hope that when you grow up, you have a kid who is just like you!” She loved me when I reminded her of those words as the child who is indeed a car­bon copy of me would, in turn, drive me to dis­trac­tion. She loved me when I brought my chil­dren to her home to visit and they pre­sented her with crayon draw­ings or water­color paint­ings which she proudly dis­played. She loved me in the years after my father died when I would call and say, “Be ready. We’ll pick you up and take you with us” to lunch, church, shop­ping or wher­ever we were headed that day. She loved me even as she grew old and frail, and could no longer walk with­out assis­tance, so my chil­dren would take turns help­ing her make her way down the steps of her home and into my car. She loved me even at the moment she left this world.

These days, a white car­na­tion — at least accord­ing to the social tra­di­tion revealed by that teacher — is the appro­pri­ate choice to show honor and respect for my mother’s mem­ory and legacy. But I wish that she were here today to receive beau­ti­ful bou­quets of car­na­tions in pink — or any other color she might desire — from me and my chil­dren. I miss her and so do they.

One lamp — thy mother’s love — amid the stars
Shall lift its pure flame change­less, and before
The throne of God, burn through eter­nity -
Holy — as it was lit and lent thee here.
~Nathaniel Parker Willis~

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