Today marks one year since my mom died.
I knew the date was coming. Anniversaries like this sit there on the calendar, whether you particularly want to acknowledge them or not.
But it was Monday. And I am a teacher. So, I went to school.
I taught. I answered questions. I did the things that needed doing.
And then I saw the yellow roses.
One of my students had been given a beautiful bouquet by a friend. She carried them into my classroom, and I stopped.
Yellow roses were my grandmother Wilma’s favorite flower.
My mom loved them, too.
And, interestingly enough, so did Eric’s mom, Norma.
Three mothers. Three women who are no longer here. And on this particular day, one year after losing Mom, there they were in my classroom.
Yellow roses.
Then, because apparently the universe wasn’t quite finished with me yet, I learned something I didn’t know.
In Argentina, September 21 is celebrated as the beginning of spring, and in recent years it has become a day for giving yellow flowers to people you love. The tradition has its roots in Argentine pop culture—in Floricienta, a wildly popular Argentine telenovela, and its song “Flores Amarillas.” What began as a young woman’s dream of receiving yellow flowers from someone she loved eventually made its way off the television screen and into real life.
September 21–Argentina—Yellow flowers.
And our daughter-in-love, Erika, is of Argentinian heritage.
So there I stood, on the first anniversary of my mother’s death, looking at a student’s bouquet of yellow roses—Wilma’s favorite, Mom’s favorite, Norma’s favorite—and discovering that even the date and the flowers had another little thread running through our family.
Coincidence? Maybe.
Sometimes remembrance doesn’t arrive with a ceremony or an announcement. Sometimes it walks into your classroom on an ordinary Monday, carried by a student who has no idea she is carrying a memory with her.
September 21. Of all the days—yellow roses.
For Wilma. For Norma. And especially, one year later, for Mom.