Bunny Flowers

Larkspur = Bunny Flowers

Look closely, see the bunny in the middle? My paternal grandmother, my Didi, had a whole garden full. She was amazing. An accomplished painter, gardener, and sweet sweet soul. When I was three, my Didi & Grandad gave me a huge pink stuffed bunny. I can remember them sitting it on the sofa, and all the adults watching to see my reaction. I was unsure if it was actually for me, and trying to make my three year old brain have the self restraint to not grab her and make a run for it. I spent weeks trying to come up with a name suitable for such a grand possession, only to finally realize there wasn't one. Her name would be "Bunny". That same year, my Daddy brought home a real bunny, she was white with pink eyes, and her name was Foo Foo. Foo Foo didn't last long, but my love for bunnies did, so when Didi took me by the hand one spring day, and showed me the bunny inside her funny purple flower, I was in awe.

Didi got sick, very sick, very fast, but Grandad would push her chair out into her garden so she could sit and instruct him on how to keep it. I would sidle up beside her so she could tell me which ones to pick for her bedside. She passed in the fall, too young and too soon. Grandad did his best to keep the house, and the garden exactly how she'd left it, but time turned the flowers to weeds, and the ivy took over mercilessly like a garden dictator. Twenty years later, every spring, I turn back into that seven year old, crouched over what was once my Didi's garden, waiting for the first sprouts of Larkspur. Spring still comes through all the dead of winter, and so do the bunny flowers.

This year, for the first time, I'll have bunny flowers of my own, planted in little vintage wooden planters that my Didi would have loved.