~and she was my mother~

     My mom grew up during the days of the Great Depression, a time of the old saying "waste not, want not".  She knew what it was like to go without, just like the thousands of others enduring those hard and lean times back in the 1930's.  It instilled in her the character trait of not throwing away things, just because they were old or worn out.  It was recycling before it was "cool".  Her old angel food cake pan was a good example.

     I was with her back home in Reno County, Kansas on the summer day that she was planting some flower seeds in the backyard that would later on become my own backyard for over 10 years.  I noticed her writing on the bottom of an old aluminum cake pan with a black magic marker.  I knew it was the one she replaced a few months before with a brand new one that she had purchased down at the local Westlake Hardware Store.  I figured she had thrown the old one away long ago.  

  

     She had not.

     With a smile on her face, she held up the pan to show me the words that she had scrawled on the bottom of it.  The words were an admonishment to any who would come across that pan in the years ahead to do the following......

"Do not throw this away!  Plant flowers in it."

     

     And so she did.  For at least 3 more planting seasons, my mom would fill that old angel food cake pan up with beautiful rose moss and enjoy watching it grow all summer long.  In June of 2003, she entered longterm health care and all the traditions that she practiced in the garden and outside in her beds of flowers came sadly to an end.  The old angel food cake pan was relegated to the corner of the basement until all of the contents of her house were either given to family members or friends who wanted them.  The old cake pan came home with me.

     I didn't do much with it at first, in fact for the longest time it just sat in a box of her belongings in my shed.  But one summer day in 2005 when I bought her old house and moved in there myself, I drug out the old pan and decided to keep the tradition going.  I went down to the corner store at 14th and Main, picked out the nicest rose moss I could find, and into the soil it went.  It looked beautiful and I know in my heart that she would have been happy to see me do that.

     Every year without fail, I have used it.  It moved with me over the big mountain when Mike and I got married in 2013.  When we came to Texas last year, I made sure that it was packed safe and sound inside of the moving truck.  After over 10 years of having it, I wasn't going to get rid of it then.  I noticed that Mom's written message on the bottom was nearly disappearing and although it made me sad to think that it was almost gone, I determined to continue using it.

     And I have.

     Yesterday Mike and I found some beautiful rose moss in Grandfield, Oklahoma when we were out driving around.  I picked up 5 nice healthy pots of it and proceeded to bring those beautiful flowers home and get them into the red, rich soil of the great state of Texas.  It felt so good to use that old worn out cake pan once again.  When I turned it over to look at the back side, I could tell that her original message was all but gone.  Only the very faint capital D of the word "don't" was left to see.  Once again it was a sad feeling but I knew that she would be happy it was still around and not in the city dump somewhere.

     I could have thrown that cake pan out long ago but I didn't.  I might have even forgotten the words that my mother wrote so very long ago now but I haven't.  That old container for baking some of the world's very best of angel food cakes in taught me a lesson in kindness and remembrance.  The very best baker I ever knew on this earth once held that cake pan in her very own hands.

     And she was my mother.