What is a mother capable of?

This isn't about bags. Not even about flowers. Today it's about her.

What is a mother capable of?

They say absolutely anything. I picture mine lifting a bus if she had to —though, come to think of it, she's already lifted a whole house—.

And I don't know which weighs more. Because she does it day after day.

But above all she does it on the nights she's spent wide awake.

In the moments when she held the fear alone just so I wouldn't feel it.

In those “I'm fine” said when really her hands were shaking.

When she found strength from nowhere just to see me smile.

And then, inevitably, I ask myself: what is a daughter capable of? How do you give a mother back that eternal love?

Because I don't know about you, but that's the purest love I know. A mother's love. The real one. The one that never wilts. The one that stays with you forever, even when she's no longer here.

When was the last time you told your mother what you truly feel for her? I can't remember either. And it's not for lack of intention. Every year I give her something, I wrap it with love, I give it to her, she smiles… and I think: “it's not enough”.

Because it's not the gift. It's everything behind it. And I wonder: how do you fit all of that into a gift?

This year I didn't want to give her something pretty and that's it. I wanted that, when she saw it, she'd feel everything I feel for her and that I almost never know how to tell her.

And I thought: what if, instead of something pretty, I make her something that lasts forever?

Something that never wilts.

That can stay with her.

The way she has always stayed with me.

Today I didn't want to sell you anything.

I just wanted to tell you this: if your mother is here, tell her.

You don't need the perfect gift.

You just need it to be true.

(Out of all this, without looking for it, our bouquets that never wilt were born. But that, today, is the least of it.)