Put the Dog on the Phone

Tiny Flower Holds Message Of Hope

Christmas day dawned cold and gray with dirty slush covering the streets and backyards of the city. In the small house, a tiny woman went about her daily chores as if it was not the most celebrated holiday in Christendom. It was like any other day because she was alone, and the familiarity of doing routine tasks gave some semblance of order to her life.

She had been thinking all morning about one of her children. A year ago he dropped out of college and came to her and said "Mother, I’m going away for awhile. I won’t call you or write. Please don’t try to find me or contact me." She had let him go in her characteristic manner, always understanding of human pain. Her children were no exception to the rule of individual freedom that she believed everyone was entitled to.

She did not hear from her son for a year, and this morning, perhaps because it was Christmas, she felt more uneasy about him than usual and her heart was heavy. Putting on her coat, she picked up the trash to take it outside and went through the basement to avoid the steady, cold rain that had begun in the fall.

Preoccupied with thoughts of her absent son, she almost missed the tiny dried flower huddled in the corner of the wintry, wind-swept yard, but pausing for a moment to look around the gray landscape, her mind’s eye saw the perfection of the only remnant of summer phlox in the garden before she saw it with her eyes.

Each petal was still intact despite the ravages of wind and rain. The fragile flower had withstood the elements of nature and, though somewhat changed by the natural aging process of all living things, it still retained the perfect beauty of its first blossoming in the warm spring sunshine.

A sense of overwhelming peace filled her soul and her spirits soared for the first time in many months. It was an omen. A sense of well-being filled the woman and her thoughts were no longer anxious about her absent son. She gently plucked the flower and took it inside where she sprayed it with gold paint and placed it in a glass, supported by tiny multi-colored ornaments. It was her only Christmas decoration. She put it on the piano where she looked at it often during the afternoon and evening.

A few days later the letter came. It was from her son. He wrote his mother many things about the year he had spent away from her. At one point he was without food and shelter and had gone to the mountains to die. But he didn’t die. He withstood the cruel elements of nature and the even crueler ravages of the desolation of human spirit, and he had survived. Much as the fragile phlox that was a messenger of hope to his mother on Christmas Day.

A Rose By Any Other Name Is Still A Tattoo

"I got a tattoo," my only daughter said to me over the phone from college. "Now don’t get crazy, it’s only a teensy weensy red rose.

"Where," I said.

"We-l-l-l, it’s just above my bra line."

"So much for off-the-shoulder wedding gowns," I said icily.

"Oh, Ma, I’ll probably never get married anyway."

"I’d say you have a better chance of getting a job in the circus now," I replied.

"But it makes me feel so free."

"I’ll bet it wasn’t. How much did it cost?"

" You don’t want to know."

"Who did it? A man or a woman?"

"It was a really neat guy. He’s semi-famous. He had a bit part in a movie once."

"Don’t tell me, let me guess. "The Rose Tattoo?"

"I knew you’d say that. I’m going to hang up now."

"No don’t hang up. This is fascinating. I want to hear more. What are you going to do when you get tired of it? You know you change your mind as often as you do your hair color."

"I’ll never get tired of it."

"No? I’ll give you three weeks. This is not like the tattoos you used to get in bubble gum, you know. It won’t wash off. What about the needle?" I said. "How can you be sure he used a clean needle?"

"I bought my own needle. It was brand new. You know, Ma, I could have done something worse."

"Like what?" I said.

"I could have gotten my nose pierced."

"Not if you ever wanted to have Christmas dinner at your grandmother’s again," I said. "And speaking of your grandmother, you better not tell her."

"Why not?"

"Remember when you got the second holes in your ears and she said only streetwalkers wear more than two earrings at a time.?"

"I know, I know. If God wanted holes in my ears he would have put them there."

"So what’s next?" I asked. "Maybe a heart with ‘Mother’ tattooed across it?"

"I’m not a sailor," she said. "What are you laughing at?"

"I’m just thinking about when you’re 90 and in a nursing home. Can’t you just hear the nurses snickering about the old dame with the rose tattoo on her boob?"