Through the generations...

My mother died 10 years ago last May and it's just been fairly recently that DD2 has indicated an interest in any items that may be still around in the family that belonged to Granny. Ten years ago she was nearly 17 and on the morning that I made a dash to the nursing home, she had come home at 3am and was very churlish when I woke her at 7am and suggested she might like to come and say 'goodbye' to grandma. She was distraught when I rang her at 8.30 to tell her that granny had passed. I was so proud of her when she arrived at the nursing home and sat with her grandmother along with the rest of the family...she hated nursing homes and found it hard to visit.

Recently I have been sorting through photos looking for ones of my mother as DD2 has indicated she would like to make a photo montage of her grandmother. Some photos that predate my birth were water damaged but many are able to be salvaged. I still have a few more boxes and albums to go through but I've been delighted with some of the 'treasures' (photos) I've unearthed in this search.

But I have another way that I can connect my daughter to her grandmother. When she moved into her own home a few months ago I decided then and there what part of her Christmas present would be. In my garden there are 'descendants' of plants from my mother's garden and I am potting up some of those for her. Add a voucher to enable her to buy some fancy pots for her courtyard in which to put these plants and I've given her some memories. One such plant is this begonia. Each spring it would flower and it was one of the few flowers that mum would let me pick to take a bunch of flowers to my teacher. So my memories are fond ones of this plant. It was really important in those distant days of the 50s and 60s to occasionally take a bunch of homegrown flowers to the teacher. (actually it still happened in the 70s when I started my teaching career)

Mum's begonias

Mum was very particular about what flowers I could pick...definitely not her gerberas, roses, violets or galliardias, but it was ok to take the daisies, nasturtiums and the begonias. Other plants of my mother's I will pot up for DD2 include some bromelaids, aloe vera and a variety of 'mother-in-law tongue' with the yellow edge around the leaves. Plants from my MIL that I will do the same, will include an aspidistra. So I guess I'm potting up some memories and linking the generations.