Pink Carnations and a Caterpillar

In Japan, amidst Valentines Day sales and decorations, in Kyoto station I found a gift store selling key chains, folders, and other paraphernalia – the sort that Japan is so good at making, pretty and practical enough that you almost can't resist buying it as a gift for someone – all with the Very Hungry Caterpillar on it.  And I thought of my mother.

My mother is a unique person whom I have often tried to describe, but I don't think I have every really been able to capture her.  I have described her to friends, and occasionally one might say, 'I bet your mother would...' and say something that to me sounds so completely unlike her that I think I must have been unable to portray her.  She is very civilized, in a way which I have always thought of as being European.  Every morning even on the weekends she is very well put together, but she is not a clothes horse or fashion conscious.  And, though this is my own quirk not hers, I remember her favorite books and cartoons from my childhood better than my own.

My mother loved Eric Carle.  Now that I am older, I can see the artwork with a mature eye and see why, but at the time I thought it was a dull book.  I was in first or second grade, perhaps too old for it when she read it to me and my younger brother, who would have been at the perfect age for that book.  I have been told that I was a slow reader in first grade, and by the end of second grade I consumed them.  But I don't remember it.  I don't remember any of the books that I read then, or the books that I liked though I'm sure I had strong opinions about them at the time.  But I remember that green caterpillar.

When other people talk about their favorite cartoons as a child, my contributions are usually followed by, “that was one of my mom's favorite cartoons.” 'Batman Beyond,' 'Dexter's Laboratory,' 'Rocky and Bullwinkle,' I know there were other shows.  I do remember them.  But they are never the first ones I think of.  And rarely to I get as excited remembering them as I do those ones.

And usually when people ask my opinion on Valentines Day, the first thing I think of is not mine, but my mother's.  I remember one year my mother telling me that she had decided to no longer celebrate Valentines Day.  But we all brought her cards and flowers anyway.

I remember in middle school we could buy white, red, and pink carnations.  We could send them to other students, or keep them to take home.  I would buy one or two and take it home, make a card with a large heart and glitter, and give them to my mother.  Because even if she wasn't celebrating Valentines Day, I wanted to say 'I love you.'

I know it's been many years since I bought you carnations.  I know my memory is not clear, and things may have happened in a different, less poetic order than I think they did.  But standing in that decked out for Valentines Day store, staring at that hungry green caterpillar, I thought of those pink carnations.  I and just want to say, I love you.