I was reading Vanilla’s post about how he finds certain plants a bit off putting. It started me thinking about my own relationships with flowers and plants, likes and dislikes and how I got this way. Which of course led to my mother, and I was thinking of writing about her preferences and whether mine, which mirror hers, are just part of shared DNA or whether they were acquired through osmosis.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my mother – she was/is not a nice person. Whether she was born that way or her life made her that way, I do not know. I don’t think she had a very nice or happy life and she seemed to want to pass that on. She certainly made my life a misery even after I walked out of hers after 48 years. Actually she did the walking, I just never bothered to go after her.  But the effects of her ‘nuture’ still bedevil me at times.

So this while thinking about floral preferences and from there perfume preferences, I got a little creeped out about whether it was nature or nurture, our similarities. I don’t want to be anything like her. I don’t want to follow her footsteps through hell, neither the one she occupies nor the one she visited upon other people.

As I was sitting down to type up this post, which was going to be more about flowers than mothers, she was still on mind. Memories of her still pricking my brain, upsetting my soul.  I don’t do this often, if ever, if at all.

Then my eyes drifted to the top of my computer screen and today’s date caught my eye. October 1st – my mother’s birthday. If she is still alive she is 98.

If she is still alive it’s because neither Heaven nor Hell wants her.