I do not have a favorite color, a favorite season, or a favorite food. I also do not have a favorite flower. But, if I had no choice, and I had to pick, the Magnolia and the Gardenia would tie for first.
The Magnolia is the flower I snapped from a forty-year-old tree in Miss Sue’s pasture and brought home to my mother each summer of my childhood. It filled the kitchen with its lemon scent and sat there with regal beauty and hints of love.
The Gardenia was a favorite of my mother’s. Its sweet fragrance captures the month of May. It is a bouquet on my kitchen counter and a teacher's gift near the end of the school year.
I cannot smell a Gardenia without thinking of my mother, nor snap a Magnolia without thoughts of Miss Sue and me on enchanted summer days of long ago.
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