Johnmari, that is a beautiful letter from your mother. What a sensitive and lovely person she sounds to be. Thanks for sharing.

johnmari, that is lovely. God bless her for having such a wonderful imagination and vision. Thanks so much for sharing this.

Oh, Mari, that's beautiful. If only there were a garden magazines "bursting their borders" with stories like this.

Your mother should write garden books.

I am sitting here teary eyed as I read your mother's beautiful story! What a great gift she has given to YOU! I so enjoyed sharing in her imaginary garden as I too sit here by the window looking out at the tracks in my own snowy backyard! Rest assured, spring will come. Thankyou!

You are so blessed to have such a mother!

Wow. So that's where you get your gift of the turning of a phrase...

What a powerful imagination she has. Does she write professionally? Thank you so much for sharing this piece.

(..."scrubbed and polished like cherished children"? Suddenly I can see your childhood--ouch, mom, stop it! :))

johnmari, you are indeed blessed. Your mother is a wonderful writer and you are a lovely daughter for buying her such an inspiring gift.

Wow! In an age where thank you notes are rarely penned and wedding gifts go unacknowledged, that is a testimony to the art of letter writing.

It makes me feel hopeful that I too can get through New England winters with the help of good books!

How beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Mari
That has me choked up ~~

What a gifted woman, filled with wisdom, comfortable in her own skin, a real talent with words that fly off the pages like a classic pianist would craft a concerto ~ a lover of nature and a true artist in many forms I'm sure.

And she lives in that beautiful state of Maine! I can't wait to go back up this summer

Thanks for sharing Mari ~ pass the tissue

That was just beautiful! How poetic she is. Know you are so very proud of her. She sounds like such a caring person.

Simply magic!

Jan

Wow, what a gift to touch our very souls! Thank you for sharing her word pictures and a bit of her personality. How delightfully soothing!

jm, you are a gem for sharing this wonderful treasure.

Wow! That was really beautiful. I felt like I was really there (and wish I had been!). What a gift for words your mother has.

Lovely.....thanks for sharing!

Johnmari, that should be published. It is very lovely!!! I hope someone will contact you (so that you can refer said person to your mom) in that regard. Oftentimes, writing on these forums will reap unexpected e-mails whereby said passages may later appear in publication, followed by something spendable in the mailbox. The great reward is seeing something one wrote in print, even if the author uses a pseudonym.

Victoria magazine is one publication that comes to my mind.

What an amazing letter! Your mother could certainly make a living with her impressive gift of writing. I got lost in the imagry of her words. Just beautiful.

A lovely piece - full of imagery and a tender touch. Thank you for sharing that with us.

What a lovely letter - surely something to treasure from your mother. Thanks for sharing.

That is a beautiful 'treasure' to share and pass down through the years. What an superb talent and vision your mother has. I also feel she should be recognized.
Thanks so much for cheering me on a cold NE AM and thanks for sharing a little of your Mom.

What a beautiful letter, your mom is a gifted writer. Her letter brought tears to my eyes as I read it. It must have made you feel great for giving her such a gift.

I woke up this morning and decided to plant sweetpeas under our bedroom window...I wonder why that popped into my head...:)

How wonderful to know you've given a gift that was so well received! Thank you so much for sharing such a beautifully written letter. It was intended for you but, clearly, it has warmed a lot of other hearts as well. A gift that keeps on giving...

I've never done much beyond container gardening, but your mother has inspired me to try for more this coming year.

That is indeed beautifully evocative. Thanks so much for sharing, Mari. :-)

"I can daydream I started my gardens twenty years ago and finally they are as I always pictured them to be; at full glory, bursting their borders, bowed down with bloom, narrow pathways rough with native stone and pebbles leading to secret corners and bowers seducing you to sit, linger a while, enjoy..."

*sigh*

So touching and vivid, I can imagine that beautiful garden right outside in my snowy yard . . . it gives me goosebumps.

Jan (in (very snowy) Wisconsin)

I'm so glad you've all enjoyed it and that some of you teared up as much as I did! :-) My mother is one of my closest friends and yes, she is probably where I got what small talent with words I may have and definitely where I got my passion for reading. She may prefer historical romance while I lean toward science fiction, but we are both adrift without a book close at hand. She has always encouraged me to write, as I have her; since she never went to college, she was so thrilled when I graduated with a BA in English Literature and a concentration in Creative Writing. She has written for most of my life but has never been published, although I've encouraged her to send small vignettes like these to "Yankee" and "Down East" magazines. I wonder if "Cottage Living" would like this one, polished up a bit?

You can also see where I got my penchant for verbosity! LOL DH is continually stunned at the length of the emails we send back and forth, since he comes from a corporate culture in which you write the absolute minimum. When we wrote hardcopy letters to each other we often needed to add a second stamp to the envelope! She may rarely set pen to paper anymore (years as a florist and gardener have trashed her poor hands) but email serves her just as well.

I have not yet seen the new Victoria magazine, every time I stop by the bookstore it is out of stock and the library does not carry it. I'll look for a back issue on eBay.

I'm going to pass excerpts from this thread back to her (I'm not going to point her to this thread because to be honest, much as I love her I want "my turf" to myself! LOL) to encourage her to continue imagining and writing. She jokes in another letter: "Now you've had two different styles of letters today...from the same person...does that make for a split personality or what? There's the everyday part of me and then, there's the dreamer...who I think is the better part of me. The everyday part is too concerned with work, paying bills, keeping house, cooking meals, etc....But the dreamer is still there, popping out unexpectedly now and again. Maybe it's better that way, making those moments when dreaming time comes all the sweeter."

Oh, and she grows gorgeous roses. Not the fancy ones, because she doesn't have time to fuss with the garden as much as she would like, but the old-fashioned "grow in great wild-looking heaps over and through the picket fence" kind, the ones where the fragrance on a summer night is so strong you can almost see it floating in the air. Thus the selection of a book on cottage gardens! Sadly I did not inherit her green thumb - I can kill mint - but she grows enough for both of us.

I really enjoyed reading the excerpts from your Mother's letter, Mari. She truly has a gift. (I, too, am a graduate with an English degree...but with a prelaw emphasis!).

:-)

Mari, your mother has given you as much of a gift as you gave to her! It's true that what goes around comes back around.

That's lovely. I often wish I would receive a phone call sometimes, let alone such a note as this. You both are quite special people, to share yourselves in this way.

Thank you for sharing this, Mari. I don't know which is more touching...your perfect gift for your mother, or her perfect response.

I agree with the others who say this should be submitted for publication.