Something I think about a lot is how as a kid, I picked a bunch of wildflowers for my mom.
I didn’t know what they were, just that they were tall and dainty, and pretty, not to mention they were everywhere.
I knew when I was little that something was very wrong between her and my dad, but seeing me come in, with random bits of dirt on my face (and somehow in my ears too) and all over my hands seemed to make her light up for a moment. She’d even scold me a little when I would bring in a bushel so thick our usual vases and glasses wouldn’t fit them. Even in spite of me picking the yard of our house clean of flowers, those dainty purple stalks would pop back up within weeks like I hadn’t just overharvested what me and my parents thought at the time were random lawn weeds.
Now that I’m older and a bit wiser (and don’t cause a wake of biological destruction in my path), and I know what was actually happening in that house, I think it’s funny. Especially since I’m really fond of flowers and floriography.
I was giving her blue toadflax. That especially looking back on it now is painfully ironic. It’s not a typical bouquet flower, but it does have a meaning.
It’s been a long while since I found the site that listed one of its meanings, but it symbolizes protection, and was said to ward off curses and hexes, or even land stewardship. Others said it symbolized joy and vitality. Emphasis on the protective aspect, and it being a stubborn, determined pioneer plant- you can probably argue resilience too.
I was giving her a fucking protection charm and neither her nor I even knew it. Not until I was like fifteen and saw the flowers again and was like “hmm I wonder what these mean, I used to give them to my mom all the time.”
Damn it if the universe ain’t a petty poetic bitch then what is it even?