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Hello, everybody. This is a Japanese Magnolia flower. Today, they started to bloom. They are my favorite.
That having been said, I’ll now tell you of their significance in my life. Tomorrow, February 27, 2012, will mark 5 years to the day since my mother died. Though I do not remember the exact date of her funeral, I do remember that it took place on a saturday morning. On this saturday morning, I awoke, a severely troubled and confused teenage boy, with my head stuck in a haze of deep mourning. After I slumped through the processes of preparing one’s appearance for a funeral of a dearly beloved, I went outside to drive her old Mercury Sable station wagon to join the funeral procession. In that moment I remember feeling so fearful, so distant, so alone. In that moment I was torn between getting in the car that had been driven so much by her and going to the funeral procession and getting in her old car and driving away, far away from everyone else that reminded me of my mother. With this decision on my mind, staring at the driver’s side door of her station wagon, I looked up; I looked up over the roof of her car and I saw that our small Japanese Magnolia tree had bloomed, and bloomed completely, overnight. The feeling, the image in my brain, when I saw the morning sunlight shining on those brand new blossoms, I now recognize to be infinitely similar to my mother’s warming smile. As I walked over to the tree and cut a single flower I felt like I words of comfort had been spoken to me by a familiar voice. Though the pain of the loss of my mom did not altogether lessen, I could go through the day of her funeral without walking through the thick fog that would have accompanied me. I did not feel alone with that flower sitting in the cup holder next to me.
Every year since, her Japanese Magnolia has bloomed in between February 26th and the day of her funeral. Every year, even this year, when the strangely warm weather caused all the rest of the area’s Japanese Magnolias to bloom in mid January.
I may not believe in god or religion at all, but I do believe that there’s such a thing as this magic in this world.
There is such a thing as Magic.
