The Red Carnation

There's a run on carnations this week. No, not those weird blue-tinged ones. I mean real carnations--red and white ones, to be specific. In this week leading up to Mother's Day, carnations and baby's breath rule. In most of America, Mother's Day is significant, to be sure. But in most African-American communities, Mother's Day is practically a religious holiday; only Christmas and Easter are more widely celebrated.

That's sure how it was when I was growing up in Chicago. Always meticulous about how we all looked for church, my own mother was especially fastidious about Mother's Day. Our hair pressed to a fare-thee-well, our little legs shiny with Vaseline above our white anklets, my sister and I joined our two brothers in the kitchen so that Mama could add the final touch--a single red carnation, surrounded by thin green tissue meant to simulate leaves. She pinned one on each of us in turn, and only then turned to get her own carnation--a white one, backed with the same green tissue.

In the language of Mother's Day flowers, a red carnation is worn by those whose mothers are still alive. To wear a white carnation means your mother has died. For all my life, I have worn a red carnation and my mother has worn a white one, because her mother died when she was a child of 2. For all my life, I have dreaded the moment that has yet to come: the day when I must wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. I try not to think of it, but inevitably I do, especially as the day approaches, as I attempt to find a gift to do justice to my mother's incredible gifts to me and my siblings. One day, I know, she will not be there when I call home. And I wonder what I will do then.

My mother still sings spirituals to herself, just as she used to when I was a girl. I used to wake up early and hear her singing in the kitchen, making grits for us, or oatmeal. She sometimes sang about being a motherless child, and I have to wonder now whether, at those times, she was longing for the mother she never knew. She was always a welcoming presence to our friends, but she had a special place in her heart for the kids we knew who had no mothers. For them, her smile was always brighter, and when she talked to them, she called them "baby" more often.

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