Not a begonia

Today’s flower is not from my yard, but it is from my home. It currently resides in my office and has for many years. It has been split many times and given to other people. I think it is a begonia. I’m not sure because I didn’t raise it. My mother did. We lived together for the last few years of her life, and this plant was in her bedroom when she died. I was pretty sure it didn’t belong outside, so I brought it to work. Honestly, I didn’t think it would survive. I knew I didn’t know how to take care of it or even have much interest in growing it, but there it is, year after year, hardy and spectacular. I think my mother has something to do with that.

My mother was a gardener at heart, but not the fancy kind. She was more like a farmer. When I was a kid, we always had a vegetable garden, and chickens, and rabbits. We ate all of them. My mother was not into ornamentals, and that is where we would part ways in the garden. She was practical. I’m not. But we both loved to grow things and saw the beauty in our plants.



And speaking of beauty, when my mother was young, she was a beauty queen…Miss Miami, Miss Florida, and a Miss America finalist. All of this led to her being picked up by a Hollywood studio in the 1940’s. This impressed a lot of people, but not my mother. She hated it. She agreed to do it because it was a way to help her parents and brother financially. The whole family went to Hollywood and her father and mother were both able to get jobs out there. My mom told me her grandmother used to say, “Powder and paint make her what she ain’t” when referring to makeup and dresses and the glitz of Hollywood. My mom agreed that was just how she felt. She told her parents how miserable she was and they asked her to give it a year and if she was still miserable, she could quit the movie scene. She gave it a year and quit.



Eventually, the whole family returned to south Florida and my mother was able to be the “dig in the dirt” kind of person that made her happy. It took courage for her to turn down what she “ain’t.



That’s my wish for you this weekend. Be who you are and not who you “ain’t.”


BTW, this "ain't" a begonia...its an Aftrican violet.