A daffodil by any other name

By Paul Kandarian

On Easter morning this year, I walked outside and saw spring’s first daffodils in bloom. I smiled, and shed a few tears. Happens every year. Always.

Every spring for most of my mother’s life, I would bring her the first daffodils I’d find, usually from the sun-drenched side of my grandparents’ house that was adjacent to ours. It always brought a smile and a tear to her face as well, a tradition of mother and son I sorely miss.

This maternal-floral connection has a bit of genetic history, I guess; my father, who grew up in that house next to us, would bring his mother the first lilacs of spring from a beautiful grove my grandfather had planted just for her. My Grandpa loved my Nana with all his heart and having flowers planted to make her happy was just something he did because of it.

How unconditional was that love? He was a full-blooded Armenian, first generation American, my Nana 100 percent Italian, herself first generation. Grandpa was calm. Nana was an Italian firebrand. When Grandpa, a shortish, very rotund, clumsy sort, would bumble around a shop my Nana insisted on going to, he would back into things, fedora in hands before him, apologizing profusely to the shopkeeper. Nana would growl at him to be careful, poking fun in Italian at his “big belly,” to which Grandpa would sigh and smile and say, “I love you too, Rosie.” And then stumble into something else and apologize.

My youthful exposure to flowers was minimal and now, like many men, I am decidedly not a flower guy. You could threaten me with death as you ask me to name a certain flower and unless they were daffodils or lilacs, well, just pull the trigger, I got nothing.

I write a lot about my Dad; of all the people who’ve made an impact on who I’ve become, notably an actor and writer, his was pretty powerful. Those were two things he always wanted to be and had the raw talent to do so. He just never followed through, instead becoming, as was the norm then, a provider.

In many ways, my mom’s impact was as much if not more noticeable, and not just because she’s the one who gave me literal life inside her body, sustaining me and then birthing me into the world. A mother is often the first touch, the first kiss, the first hug, the first pure infusion of unconditional love a child will have.

The impacts my Mom had on me were many. She bequeathed me her blue eyes, her beautiful, light, loving blue eyes. When I had hair, it was chestnut brown, as was hers before it turned gray and then white. As what’s left of mine has.

Her other lasting gifts included cooking. Some of my best and tastiest childhood memories were of being at her side at the stove or the counter, stuffing rigatoni with a luscious mix of ricotta cheese, hamburger, and spinach, or creating the best Sunday spaghetti gravy (sauce, but many Italians call it gravy, as we did) in her mom’s old hammered aluminum pots that I still have, or rolling flattened beef into a succulent braciola, or spinning tiny meatballs in our palms to make Italian meatball soup.

At Easter, my Mom was famous family wide for making rice pies, these round (or square) gifts of love, thick and just the right amount of gooey flecked with pineapple pieces or whatever it was she put in them to make them even sweeter, even the crust itself and the criss cross of lattice strips over them sweet. She would make 10 or more of them and dole them out to family members, always making sure I got at least two or three of them. She did this well into her later years and of all the things I make that she did, I have yet to attempt her rice pies. I could never even come close, so I don’t even try.

All of it, I love as she did.

And cats – my Mom adored cats and if she had her way we’d have lived in a house full of them but never managed more than two at a time. Because of her love of cats, I have the same love and to this day, the second I pick up a cat and cuddle it, I am in my happy spot, the purr of a loving cat bringing me nearly as much contentment as the purity of a child’s laugh.

Mother’s Day is May 9, the one day of the entire year officially dedicated to mothers without whom none of us would exist, none of us would flourish, none of us would be blessed with the gifts they have bestowed upon us. Quite obviously, one day is not enough to celebrate those gifts and those who gave them to us.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you more with every daffodil I see.