for her

Eight years ago this Friday, my gramma died.  On my birthday.

We talked a lot over the years before she died.  One day I asked her what was her favorite flower.  She said she liked gladiola the best.  That seemed fitting.  Like her, they are gracious, beautiful, stately.   They bloom around my birthday, so when she died, the florist was able to put together a beautiful arrangement of pale pink gladiola for the top of her casket.  They matched her blouse.  I knew she would have liked them.

When it was time to design her headstone, I asked to have a gladiola etched onto it so there would always be one on her grave. 

The spring after she died, I bought dozens of gladiola and planted them around my gardens.  They were spectacular.  A fitting tribute for her.

Unfortunately, somehow I missed the direction about gladiola that says they need to be dug up after they bloom or they will freeze.  So the next year there were not dozens of beautiful gladiola in my gardens.

There was one.

Since then, there is always only one plant.  I suspect it survives because it is buried under a massive planting of an ornamental variegated grass.  Each year, it arrives just in time for my birthday.

I cut it and wrap the end in wet paper towel, slip the end into a baggie to keep it moist for as long as possible, and then I take it to the cemetery, to gramma.  And I am glad we talked about the flowers she liked.