Flowers

I know you all are tired of hearing about everything going on with moving Frankie's Aunt and Granny's death but I've got something else to talk about.

The morning we went down to Granny's, the day she died, I'd complimented her on her flowers. They were all in full bloom and they were gorgeous! I asked her when I'd be able to take some of her Touch-Me-Nots. I'd asked for the last 2 years but my timing to get them was never right. She told me to wait til the seeds were about to drop and she's save me some.

During this whole process of moving her things, the only thing I asked for was flowers. No one else wanted any of them and it was the one thing Granny took pride in at her house. She had a green thumb and could take a piece off of a plant and with her TLC, she could grow just about anything!

The house is cleaned out, the walls are painted and the last thing I needed to do was get the flowers. I walked around outside just admiring all of them. If Granny was there, she'd be hobbling along with me and telling me the same stories about each flower, bush and tree...just like she always had. I never seemed to get tired of her telling me and it always made me feel so good to see how flowers made her smile. I looked over at the mimosa tree. I remembered when she planted that from a 6-inch seedling. Her lilac bushes were spreading and there were little baby ones. I remembered her giving me several small seedlings and Frankie ran them over with the lawnmover before I could tell him they weren't weeds...LOL! As we were poking around in the flowers, a few signs....first a small black shiny rock. Among the weeds and over grown flowers, was a small flat rock that just appeared. It was smooth and I picked it up and it was very cold. I smiled as I handed it off to Kayleigh to put in her pocket. Both of my girls have always been rock collectors and this was not a rock from the drive way. It was about the size of a 50 cent piece and jet black. Were we trying to be told something? The next sign...a praying mantus. It was sitting very still on a bunch of marigolds. I'd passed by this bunch and never saw it. It never jumped, never flew. Kayleigh picked it up and it sat right on her hand without moving, just looking around. Was it Granny watching and making sure we got the flowers? Then....her mums. Every year for Easter or Mother's Day, we always bought her a mum. She loved them because they'd get so full and bloom with tons of flowers in the fall. I got the shovel and began digging. The tree....the lilacs....and 12 mums! I also got those Touch-Me-Not seeds. They are done blooming and the seed pods are about to drop. The exact time that Granny said I needed to take them. I held my emotions together as I loaded all the flowers onto Frankie's trailer to haul home. When we got home, it was nearly 7:30pm and I knew I didn't have much time before it got dark and I had to get the flowers in the ground or they'd die.

With Granny's shovel in my hand, I began to dig the first hole. With each shovel, I cried harder. I was sad because I knew how much all these flowers meant to Granny but I was also happy because we could now watch them grow, just like she had and we'd know they were a small part of her. In that first hole, right out in the center of my front yard, went the mimosa tree. I then layed out all the mums. They're anywhere from 1ft-2ft around so I had to make some space for them. As I started digging for those, I began to cry again. Then all of a sudden, the sky turned an eerie orange. With tears streaming down my face, I looked up at Kayleigh, who immediately began to cry as well. Through my sobs, all I could choke out was, "Granny is smiling because we've got her flowers and she's telling us so!" I firmly believe that loved ones that have passed on send us "signs". Some of us choose not to see them and some of us are very intune and would like to believe it's our loved ones way of telling us something. The sun had already set here in VA and it was nearly 8pm when the sky turned orange. It was only bright for about 5min and then it was gone. Had Kayleigh of not been there and if I hadn't of taken the picture, then some people would probably think I was crazy. But I felt it and I know it was her way of saying "Thank you!" I felt a peace that I haven't felt since all of this happened on June 28th. It was the closure I needed to know Granny made it. Not that I doubted she'd spend eternity in Heaven but sometimes we just need to be reminded that our loved ones made it there.

This is how the sky looked. Those clouds swirled around for only a few minutes and then the sky calmed to look like this....