The forget-me-not (Myosotis) is one of my favorite little spring flowers, and I think it received its name for a very valid reason. I don’t know who named it, but I know it’s a very old name. In the German tongue it was known as Vergissmeinnict and received a literal translation into the English language as “forget me not.”
Henry IV used this flower as his symbol while he was in
exile in 1398 so he would not be forgotten.
There are also many medieval stories about it symbolizing faithfulness
as well as ancient Greek legends and many poems throughout the ages. It seems everyone has been taken by this
little flower.
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| Forget-me-not (Myosotis). |
At first I thought nothing of the name at all. I knew that was its name and didn’t really
think at all why it should be so. It was
such a small flower, and there were more dramatic blooms to capture my
imagination. Then the years began to
pass--and they passed and passed still--and the forget-me-not began to take on
a new meaning for me. You might say I
had to grow into it, and the more I “grew” into it, the more I realized that
age is a very significant part in understanding and appreciating this flower.
The forget-me-not is one of the earliest flowers found, and
it is very low to the ground. It is not
dramatic and striking like daffodils and tulips. It’s small and easy to miss. But one day in early spring you will find
yourself out walking. It will still be
rather cool outside, and a bit of greenery will be starting to appear here and
there, but it will certainly not be the massive green of late spring and
summer. You will walk and your mind
will wander as it always does, and you will come to dwell on an event in your
past. You will become wrapped up in
it. Perhaps there will be joy; perhaps
there will be regret. You will be lost
in your thoughts with your eyes low to the ground.
And then you will see the forget-me-not. It will be a mass of tiny blueness on the
ground, sweet and innocent and pretty, and you will smile and go on your
way. You will forget about the
forget-me-nots that you saw. After all,
they are only tiny “nothing flowers.”
Here and there you will see them, almost always when you are deep in
thought, and then again, you will forget them.
The next year you will be walking once again. You will be thinking again. In that strange way that the forget-me-not
has, you might and you might not see them again in the same spot. That is because some forget-me-nots are
perennials (come back yearly) and some are annuals (live and die in the same
year). And you never know which is
which. Just when you get used to seeing
the forget-me-not, it leaves, only to show up in a completely different place,
sometimes several feet away, sometimes several yards away. The forget-me-not has the strangest habit of
showing up when and where you least expect it.
It’s no use feeling bad when you are looking forward to
seeing them and they don’t come back the following year. They have a mind of their own, and if you
will only walk and think and reminisce, they are sure to pop up somewhere along
your path in a place you least expect.
When you see them, you will come to know how precious your memories
are. You will say to yourself, “Oh,
there you are! I have been looking for
you!” And you will smile and go on your
way, knowing that your memory is safe.
Every year the forget-me-not comes back in one way or
another. Here and there it makes a brief
appearance to remind us that spring is back, that life does go on after the
bitter winters of the Earth and the even bitterer winters of our own souls. It’s the tiny flower that searches for you to
let you know that you have not been forgotten either.
