Mother's Day, Murphy, and the Plants That Remember
Field notes from a witch in the in-between
Mother’s Day is weird when you’re an estranged daughter.
And it’s even weirder when you’re a mom with a son who doesn’t want to speak to you anymore.
It’s not a day I circle on the calendar.
I don’t buy flowers.
I don’t expect brunch.
I don’t expect anything, really.
This year, I took Murphy out to hike in the rain.
No plan. No pressure.
Just air, birdsong, and miles of green.
And I don’t know what I was expecting.
But what I found were old friends.
Balsamroot, camas, and prairie stars.
Yarrow reaching its buds up, about to burst open, waiting for their moment.
Even a shy tiny flower varieties peeking out from beneath the dry dead weight from the year before.
Some of them I knew by name. Some I didn’t. But all of them felt familiar.
There’s this thing that happens when you’ve been learning the land—when you spend enough time out in it, season after season.
You start to recognize who shows up when.
You start to greet them.
And eventually, it feels like they’re greeting you back.
Like, oh hey, you’re here again. e remember you too.
Plants don’t need explanations.
They don’t ask where you’ve been or why you’re crying or what went wrong.
They just keep showing up. Rooted. Resilient. Quietly reaching.
And in a year where motherhood has felt more like mourning than celebration, that steady presence means everything.
Murphy trotted sniffed and ran, living his best off-leash life. And I walked behind him, hand lens in my pocket, knees dirty from crouching to look at flowers I used to step over without a second thought.
It wasn’t healing, exactly.
But it was honest.
And it was enough.
This is the kind of mother I know how to be:
The kind who talks to plants and her dog.
The kind who leaves offerings for dandelions.
The kind who lets the land mother her back, one muddy step at a time.
So Happy Mother’s Day.
To the mothers who are grieving.
To the daughters who walked away.
To the women who are doing their best with what they’ve got.
To the witches in the woods, piecing themselves back together with every bloom they learn to name—
You’re not alone.
The plants remember you.
And maybe that’s a start.
With ink on my fingers and tears on my cheeks,
