Happy Mother's Day

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. I wish all mothers a Happy Mother’s Day. This day always reminds me mother’s love. At this time, I especially think about two groups of mothers, the mothers who could not afford to have their kid education and the mothers who lost their children in Sichua earthquake last May. That reminded me two flower arrangements I made last year in May.

I have been volunteering at SOAR Education Foundation for 9 years. The Foundation is dedicated to provide scholarships to those impoverished children in rural areas across China who performed well academically in their schools and wanted to continue their education. The SOAR scholarships enable them to have the opportunities to acquire a basic education. There are many bright poor kids in rural China, their mother could not afford to send them to school. Those mothers love their kids just like my mother loves me, I wanted to help to honor my own mother. That was how I got involved. Each year SOAR holds its annual fund raising dinner in May and I always make a flower arrangement for the event. Last year, I thought about to not only use the flower arrangement as decoration, but also auction it to raise fund. At my ikebana class the day before the event, I played with the palm boots and setup a structure by stacking three palm boots. My teacher and peer students all liked it very much. My teacher found me a dry king protea flower, I arranged few passion flower vines. This way, if any one wanted to buy the arrangement, they could enjoy the arrangement for a long time and only need to replace the greens.

The fund raising dinner was a very successful one. Though no one bought my arrangement, but together, we raised more than $30,000 and that was not including the dinner ticket sale. I was very happy for the success.

I brought back the flower arrangement home and set it up at my living room. The structure reminded me the field after quake in Sichuan, China. However, the feeling from that dry flower did not match what was in my mind.

Tuesday morning, I remembered that I had few palm boots stored in my office cube. Therefore, I brought with me the left over passion flower vines and two stems lily to the office. I set the flower arrangement at lobby. Over the lunch break, I stepped back and looked at the arrangement, I had tears in my eyes. That was the very first time I was moved to tear by my own work. I went back my desk and printed a sign “Life After Quake”. I placed it by the arrangement.

The earthquake made me think again about the meaning of life and treasure life more. I realized my own responsibility to maximize the value of my own life, not only for myself, but also for those who died in this natural disaster. There were many who lost their own lives to save others. I deeply respect them. They are my heroes and I dedicated the arrangement to them.

Half an hour later, a coworker emailed me. In her email, she said: “I was deeply moved by your flower arrangement ‘Life after quake.’ Thank you so much for sharing your art with us.” I was very satisfied that my arrangement communicated for me.

Time runs fast. We will have fund raising event again this year next Sunday and, in a few days, it is the one year anniversary of Sichuan earthquake.

Mother’s love is selfness love. The best way to appreciate own mother is to appreciate all mothers. If we can do anything to help mothers, to make them happy, especially those unfortunate mothers, let’s try our best.

Happy Mother’s Day, Happy early Monday.

In Friendship through Flowers,
Yirou.

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