My dad thought lilies were my mother’s favorite flower, because she chose them for their wedding. She revealed to me that she actually preferred morning glories, but my grandmother said those weren’t “classy enough” for a wedding. When I told my dad about it, he said, “I know that, I get her lilies because they remind her of the day she smiled so hard, her face hurt for a week.”

I remember blinking, a little surprised. “So you knew the whole time?”

“Of course,” he chuckled. “She loves morning glories, but lilies are the story.”

It didn’t make much sense to me back then. I was sixteen, head full of teenage stuff, and didn’t pay much attention to the language of flowers. But now, years later, I keep coming back to that line: Lilies are the story.

My mother passed away last spring. Quick and cruel. Ovarian cancer that snuck in, wrapped its hands around her, and didn’t let go.

We didn’t see it coming. She was always moving, always doing. She had this quiet energy that made a house feel warm even when she wasn’t saying much. The kind of woman who made soup from scratch and somehow remembered your best friend’s birthday, even if she’d only met them once.

After the funeral, people kept bringing flowers. Lilies, mostly. The scent of them hung in the house like an invisible veil—strong, heavy, almost too much.

Dad didn’t say much those first few days. He sat on the back porch, where they used to drink tea in the mornings. Just sat there, holding the mug, long after the tea had gone cold.

I didn’t know what to do. So I cleaned. I organized. I tossed out expired spices and folded laundry.

And one morning, as I was putting away the sympathy cards into a shoebox, I found a note in her handwriting tucked between the pages of an old book.

It read:
“Morning glories bloom fast. Maybe that’s why I love them. Life doesn’t wait. It blooms. And it ends.”

I didn’t cry. Not right then. I just stared at it and whispered, “I’ll plant you some.”

Two weeks later, I was in the backyard digging holes. I had no clue what I was doing, just that I wanted to do it. Morning glories. Blue ones, purple ones, even those soft white ones that look like summer fog.

Dad walked out, hands in his pockets, watching me.

“She’d like that,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“You know she planted those once? When you were little. They didn’t take. Too much shade back here. She didn’t try again.”

I looked up at the tree that spread its arms across half the yard. “Maybe I’ll try the front. More sun.”

He nodded. Then, after a pause, said, “Let me help.”

And just like that, we became gardeners. Grieving ones, yes—but also hopeful. There’s something oddly healing about dirt under your nails.

Summer came, and the flowers did too. Slowly at first. Tiny green shoots curling toward the sun like they had somewhere to be.

But this isn’t just a story about flowers. Not really.

It’s about secrets. Not dark ones—just the kind that sit quietly in the corners of a life.

A few months after Mom passed, I started sorting through her things. Dad had left it all untouched. Her scarves still hanging on the door, her favorite mug still on the shelf.

One afternoon, I opened a drawer in her writing desk and found a stack of letters, all tied with a ribbon.

They were addressed to no one. Just dated. And each one was signed with her name.

I read the first one.

It was about me. The day I was born. How she was scared and excited, and how I came into the world screaming like I had something important to say.

The next was about my brother, Ben. How he broke her favorite vase when he was six and confessed with tears, and how she couldn’t even be mad.

There were letters about dad, too. About the way he left little notes in her coat pocket. About the time he built her a bookshelf from scrap wood and it leaned so badly, they had to bolt it to the wall.

I read them all, slowly, carefully. Like they might disappear if I blinked too hard.

And then I found one that made me stop.

It wasn’t signed. And it wasn’t about us.

It was about a woman named Ruth.

I didn’t know a Ruth. But the letter was full of her.

She’d been a friend, once. A best friend. The kind who knows what your laugh sounds like before you even make a sound.

But something happened. The letter was vague. Just… sorrowful.

“I miss her every day,” Mom had written. “I hope she’s happy, wherever she is. I wish I’d called. I wish I hadn’t been proud.”

I folded the letter and put it back.

It sat with me for days.

Until I asked Dad.

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Ruth was her college roommate. They had a falling out. Something about a trip, a misunderstanding. Your mom never talked much about it. Said it still hurt.”

I nodded.

Then I asked, “Why didn’t she ever reach out again?”

Dad sighed. “Sometimes we think we have time.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how many people carry silent regrets.

So the next day, I looked for Ruth. It took me a while. But I found her.

She lived three towns over. I wrote her a letter. Told her who I was. Said I’d found something that I thought belonged to her, in a way.

She called me.

Her voice was older than I expected. Worn, like an old record.

She thanked me. Then she cried.

We met two weeks later.

She wore a purple scarf. Said it was a gift from Mom, back when they used to walk everywhere because neither of them had a car.

“I still wear it every winter,” she said.

We sat on a park bench and talked for hours.

And when I showed her the letter, her hands trembled.

“She never stopped loving me,” she whispered. “I thought she had.”

I shook my head. “She just didn’t know how to come back.”

Ruth looked at me and smiled. “Neither did I.”

Before we parted, she pulled something from her bag. A faded photo. Two young women, arms around each other, smiling like the whole world was a joke only they understood.

“I always kept this,” she said. “Even when I was mad.”

I took a copy of the photo home. Framed it. Put it next to Mom’s morning glories.

Life moved on. As it does.

But I started to notice something.

Every time I shared one of Mom’s letters with someone she’d written about—Ben, Dad, even my aunt—something healed.

Ben cried. Said he hadn’t cried since the funeral.

Dad just sat with one letter pressed to his chest for nearly ten minutes.

And my aunt called me three days later and said, “Thank you. I didn’t know she forgave me.”

Turns out, there are a lot of things we don’t say out loud.

That fall, I made a decision.

I typed up all her letters. Printed them into a little book. Not fancy. Just bound at the local shop, with a soft cover and her name on the front.

I called it Morning Glories.

At Christmas, I gave it to everyone in the family.

One copy, though, I left at the library. Slipped it onto the shelf in the “Local Authors” section, even though she wasn’t an author.

I figured someone might find it.

And they did.

Because two months later, I got an email from a woman named Sarah. She said she’d read the book in one sitting. Said it made her call her sister after five years of silence.

That was the moment I realized something.

Grief, when shared, doesn’t divide. It multiplies into grace.

One letter. One story. One morning glory at a time.

As for Dad, he still buys lilies.

But now, he plants morning glories, too.

He said once, while watering them, “She gets both now. The story and the truth.”

And I guess that’s what love is.

Not just remembering someone the way they wanted to be seen.

But seeing them fully. Choosing all of it.

Even the parts they thought they had to hide.

So if you’re reading this, maybe there’s someone you’ve meant to call. Someone you had a fight with years ago.

Do it. Don’t wait for the right moment.

Morning glories bloom fast. And life doesn’t wait.

Thanks for reading. If this story touched your heart, share it with someone you care about. Maybe it’ll plant something good. 💙