The Mother’s Day Stories That Stayed With Us

Last week we did something we’d never done before. In the lead-up to Mother’s Day, we asked the people who follow us on Instagram and Facebook to tell us — in their own words — why their mum deserved flowers.

We thought we’d get a handful of entries. Instead we spent days reading what came in, with tears in our eyes in the back room of the shop.

There were entries from sons writing for the mums who raised them alone. From daughters writing for grandmothers who’d been everything — chef, doctor, teacher, “soothsayer.” From people who’d lost their mums and wrote for their sisters instead. From wives, husbands, mothers-in-law. Stories of dementia, of cancer, of ten years of IVF that finally became children. Stories of the small things — the smell of flowers in vases, a six-year-old picking blooms from the garden, “you have to feed the bees, dear.”

We chose three winners with so much love. Two of them came to the shop. One never did.

For the mum who feeds the bees

Our second-place winner wrote about a garden — her mum’s, then hers. Growing up there were flowers in every room and even in the salads. “You have to feed the bees, dear,” her mum used to say. Her mum has dementia now, can’t smell or taste anymore, and can’t get into the garden the way she once did. So Ailsa quietly took it over — her mum’s bed, and the neighbour’s too — and filled them with hippeastrums, day lilies, freesias, marigolds, jasmine and pink camellias. A rainbow, “for all seasons.”

Her mum tells her how amazing it is, that the flowers just keep appearing out of nowhere.

She came in to collect her bouquet, beaming. We made it warm yellows and oranges — the colours of a garden in spring.

For the little flower-picker

Our third-place winner wrote about her six-year-old son. Since he was very small, every Mother’s Day morning he’s wandered out into their garden and picked his mum flowers — whatever was blooming, gathered in two little hands. “It’s just the 2 of us and our pup,” she said in her entry.

We didn’t want winning a raffle to take that tradition away from him.

So instead of handing his mum a finished bouquet, we asked him to come into the shop — and we let him choose. He wandered around picking out the colours and flowers he thought she’d love, like he was in a bigger version of his own garden. He chose well.

We sent him home with the bouquet so he could add the ones he picked from their garden alongside the ones he picked from ours. Same boy, same tradition — just a few more flowers this year.

The bouquet that was never collected

The first-place winner — the one we chose for the biggest, most beautiful arrangement — never came.

Her entry was sent by her own child. It was about a mum who has raised five children, on her own, while also being a carer to one of them. About a woman who has gone without, again and again, so her kids never had to.

We called. We held the bouquet for a few extra days, hoping. We don’t know what happened in her week — what got in the way, what was harder than usual, why the day passed without her making it in.

We hope she’s well. And we hope someone, somewhere, gave her flowers anyway.

We think about her quite a lot, actually.

What we learned

We expected the raffle to be a sweet little marketing thing. It ended up being something else.

Mother’s Day isn’t really about a raffle, or a florist, or a competition. It’s about love that doesn’t always get said out loud, and how flowers — strange, fragile, fleeting things — turn out to be one of the ways we say it anyway. The grandma who’s ninety years young and just wants a vase of colour. The mother-in-law who quietly changes a person’s life. The sister stepping in when there’s no mum to write for. The six-year-old who’s been picking flowers from the garden since he could walk.

To every single person who entered — thank you. Every mum, wife, sister, grandma and mother-in-law mentioned in those stories is so loved, and so seen.

For next year’s giveaway, follow us on Instagram or Facebook — or read about the other community work we’re proud to be part of on the Gold Coast.

— Carolina, Flowers of Southport