I took this picture this morning – yep, all those beautiful flowers are November blooms! There’s a nice background story to this pretty little bush planted in my front garden. My Mammy in North Carolina, someone who was not related to me by blood but “adopted” me as her grandchild, had a very large camellia (probably 4-5x bigger than this one) outside her small farmhouse. This is the same woman to taught me how to sang (not sing) in church… a woman of incredible faith, love and kindness. When she died a little over 11 years ago, my Mom and I took clippings of the camellia from her house and tried to grow them, to remember her by. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful.
That year for my birthday, my mom surprised me with a new camellia, just about 18 inches tall, and said, “it’s not Mammy’s, but I thought we could try again.” We planted it in front of my dining room window, and look at it now! I think of her every time I trim it, weed around it, and especially when it blooms. It now stands almost 5 feet tall.
The thing about a camellia is, it blooms every year when everything else around it is dying. There is a life lesson in there, I’m sure of it. Aren’t we called to bloom for people, when everyone around us is hurting? Camellias are like the counter-culture of pink flowers. In November in the mid-Atlantic, there is nothing pink except these. And here they stand, as leaves are fading from yellow to crispy brown, and the brightest greens fade to their wintery shade. This beautiful flower reminds us that we can stand in the gap for another person, and be that glimmer of hope. We can be counter-cultural and reach out with kindness. We can be the nice thing that people see in a world full of not-nice. The camellia does not struggle to bloom in less than ideal conditions… neither should we. Have a great day, everyone. 🙂