I had always been around plants, both the ones that produced food for the table and the ones that produced food for the soul. I loved the things Mama grew and, as a very small child, I would follow her about making sure all of the tiny seeds she would sow were where they were supposed to be. Mama would tell me what each one was for and why she was planting it.
One spring, when I was seven, our school was teaching us about bulbs from Holland and we had a 'Spring Flower Week' and each of us were asked to bring a bouquet from home. Our property was lush with growth and bloom during all of the growing season. I told Mama I needed to take some flowers to school for our flower week. For the first time I followed Mama about as she reaped bloom stalks instead of vegetables, berries or fruit. She made me such a bouquet that I was afraid I could not carry it. As she cut the tall heavily laden stalks she told me about the iris. She said it had three standards, one for faith, one for wisdom and one for valor and three falls, one for the beginning, one for the middle and one for the end. She said my life had a beginning and would, in the future, have a middle and someday I would have an end. She told me that I would need faith, wisdom and valor to make all the parts of my life happy and successful. I marveled. Not only were the irises exceptionally beautiful, lifting their petals up to the heavens in joy and down to the earth that sustained them, they were also noble.
Mama made two huge bouquets of the stalks and wrapped the stems in wax paper so I would not get too wet. I had to walk a ways to school and with a huge bouquet in each arm I must have looked a site. The bottom of the stems came almost to my knees and the tops of the blooms towered over each shoulder. I hugged these noble flowers and felt beautiful. I slipped into school and up towards the teacher and I still remember to this day the look on her face as the shy child hidden in the flowers moved steadily towards her. She jumped up and began to relieve me of my burden and ask 'where did you get all of these beautiful irises?' I wondered at her lack of knowledge. didn't she know every mother has a wonderful garden full of beautiful irises?
I was a shy child (yes I was - no snickering now) but I did not hesitate that day when I was asked to get up in front of the class and tell them about the irises. How could I have shrunk from telling them about such a noble and beautiful flower. I was full of courage as the irises looked on.
That was my first time as a 'public speaker' but not nearly my last, as for many years I made a fair living appearing before audiences.
Some years ago I had come to a place in my life where I did not know what direction to take. I had expressed my feelings to an artist friend. She did a caricature of me walking down a road approaching several forks. In this drawing I had a hobo stick over my shoulder, as luggage, with the bandana tied to the end of the stick. The bandana was full of irises with them sticking out of each end and clinging to its side.
The iris is more than a flower to me it is a connection to people who have held my hand and shared their knowledge and love and who are now long gone from this world. It is a connection to that shy tow-headed child who was looking forward to the middle and, yes, even the end. I know it is just a plant but........ it is an iris.
