Flower story

I lost contact with my blog again and it seems determined that I'm not going to tell the flower story.


I also lost one article called "Lost in the Bay."


One lovely Spring day in Mission B.C. I was walking past some pleasant back gardens and came across a blooming mass of multi- coloured Azaleas and rhododendrons which almost shocked me with its beauty. I stood in awe of such a garden and the owner came up to me.
" I'm an artist." I told him, "and such brilliance sets alight all my senses."
With that, he told me to wait while he clipped an armful for me. How very generous of him, I thought as I carried them back to my apartment.
When I arrived, I found a vase, it had to be very large, filled it with water put the complete armload of flowers in it and set out water-colour paints, brushes and 300 lb. paper.
I carried the initial excitement of first seeing these flowers as I sat down to paint.
Nothing would stop me once I started. I had to give them the life they had shown when I first came across them.
I didn't know that the man who had grown these flowers was well-known or that later one of the flowers would become Mission's emblem. I just knew I'd been handed a bit of heaven.


And it came to pass that when Willy wanted to court me, he asked if he could come to my apartment to buy a painting. I got everything out but he said, "Don't do that, I'll just take one from your wall."
And he chose that painting.


We eventually lived together so once again it came to live on our wall and someone else fell in love with it and Willy said - "It's okay - let it go." I missed it very much but if you know about an artist's life, we need money for our supplies.


It must have happened twenty-four years ago because Willy and I have been together that long now that it's 2014.
Bringing the story up to where I am in assisted living and Willy is 93 years old and in Pleasantview. I am sore after a fall and hired Care Aids to assist me and one of them goes to the garden man I speak of. I knew it must be him because she talked of his garden. I asked her to tell him how his flowers live on in the painting.
I'll ask Mady if she can find a copy of it for him.


signed painting can stories:-Doris