I was in the backyard with my mother yesterday afternoon. Mom enjoys having fresh cut flowers in the house and she was going around our backyard trying to get leafy greens for the flower arrangement. We trimmed little shrubs and potted plants, and we walked around the back and side yard to discuss how to care for different types of plants. Mom has always enjoyed gardening and she is the only one in our family who knows how to do all of that. She has the green thumb.
Mom used to have a huge backyard in Taipei but ever since dad got sick, mom traded her house in the "mountains" for a house in the city so she doesn't have the space to garden anymore. She does what she can in the balconies and outside of her front door, and she also supplement the lack of garden with fresh cut flowers all over the house. Although our backyard in California has not been kept up like her old yard, she enjoyed going around and finding the things that she needs to arrange flowers. After she found everything that she needed in our yard, she came up with three different 'styles' of flower arrangements in three different vases. I was amazed by the kind of material that she was able to collect and by her creativity for arranging the flowers the way she did... I could tell that she was happy. Not only she had the opportunity to work in the yard, to create something beautiful, but best of all, it was free!
After we came in to the house, she admired the flower that she put together through our family room window that faces the pool, then she said "beauty in one's in lifestyle is a creation, and it's not to be taken for granted."
Mom has always been someone who's into making her home and her life beautiful, but I have always had a judgement about her wanting to look good for others. Last night, when she said what she said, it was the first time that I heard what she was really saying, and what she said had a completely different impact on me. I saw for myself that I have never cared or valued anything about having a beautiful house, having a well decorated bedroom, or a well maintained backyard. To me, those are just extra work that creates no added value. Because I have never placed any value on having a beautiful home or lifestyle, I have never understood that this was a way that my mother contribute to our lives.
Yesterday was the first time I realized how my 'correct' values can blind me from appreciating others' contribution, yesterday was the first time I appreciated my mother's effort of making my house a beautiful home, and yesterday was the first time I can share her joy for having contributed to our lives.
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