Simple Gestures

Photo Taken By: Lisa Melara

Never underestimate the power of a small gift. Never underestimate an act of kindness. Never underestimate that what you love might bring joy to someone who never noticed. Simple gestures may just be the eternal memory and love for generations to come.

I want to share a story about a cyclamen. By definition, “Cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum) is a petite flowering plant that has sweet-scented, small blooms on long stems that stretch up above the foliage. Flowers come in shades of pink, purple, red, and white. It has heart-shaped leaves. While cyclamen can be ordered from florists, they are often found in a grocery store floral shop.

We did not often have these in our home, but my mother liked to buy them for others. She began buying them for me when I had my own apartment as a blooming young adult. In kind, I returned them to her for valentine’s day or holidays. While expressing love to each other was often complicated, somehow arriving with a cyclamen was a reminder of our bond, and our sharing of love with each other. We were often amazed how it bloomed, rebloomed and lived on for several seasons or years.

When my own daughter moved into her own apartment, I arrived there on Valentine’s Day with a bright pink cyclamen plant. It felt so right to deliver one to her like my mother had done to me. Since then, she has become a lover of plants and they bring her window ledges, kitchen counters and living spaces joy, beauty, and perpetual life…and of course the circle of life.

Her own cyclamen is in its third year, and we marvel at its dying off, dormancy, regrowth and bloom. It gets us both excited. My own cyclamen, this one white, does the same. This recent spring it felt like I was coaxing it to grow, take hold, create buds and bloom. Finally, it did, and strong crisp white blooms reached tall on my kitchen sill. Of course, I sent her pictures with the excitement and exclamations to go with it.

A thoughtful gesture and a supermarket flower given to me by mother has the power to conjure feelings, memories, and kindness over generations. It is that simple and yet embodies the circle of life. I remember my mother in this simple act. I extend to my daughter as her mother. She, too, will have a beautiful memory of me and her grandmother that I hope she will share some day with her child or a friend. Indelible memories are made from small acts of kindness and beauty. Eternity and the divine are found day by day in the simplest of gestures.