Bring Flowers of the Fairest

 

Today my house cleaning continued. Really, cleaning does not actually say it. I wished I had one of those construction debris thingies attached to the window so I could just dump stuff into it!

Finally in the evening I went outside and picked some violets. I was going to do a painting of them. However when I got inside with them I had another idea.

I remembered when I was little and we used to put flowers in front of our statue of the Blessed Mother. I loved that about May. We would say a decade of the Rosary and sing a song, maybe "'Tis the Month of Our Mother," something like that. I always remember those beautiful evenings, like tonight -- warm, fragrant. Howard and I ate dinner on the porch tonight and the air had the aroma of flowers.

I do not think I ever thought to do this in my adult life, but tonight I thought, I will put these violets in front of my statue of Our Lady.

Now things grew complicated. For one thing I could not find the right size vase. For another I have two statues of Our Lady. What to do? What to do?

I have them arranged on the sun porch with St. Joseph in the middle. Remember the statue of St. Joseph, how I got it? That is this statue.

After reviewing the situation I finally put the violets in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel because her eyes seemed to go sweetly in the direction of the flowers. Heck, it really doesn't matter, you know? Whatever statue the flowers go in front of, they go in front of Our Lady. 

The Our Lady of Mount Carmel statue also is special to me because Howard fixed it. Jeoffry knocked her down once when I foolishly had the statues on the radiator. I remember Howard breaking the news to me. "It's bad," he said. But then he glued her back together. I was so grateful because my mother had given me this statue.

Long story short, now we have violets in front of her. I said a "Hail, Holy Queen," a prayer that I love, and I really loved continuing my childhood tradition, after all this time.

Now I have this song on my brain...

Oh Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today...

Queen of the angels, Queen of the May!