Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

with fresh flowers, either plucked from our bountiful garden or bestowed upon the family by Mama’s thankful patients. She used to say, “Flowers have always given me the best feelings I know, and they remind me to be cheerful.”

When the sunny days of my family’s favorite season—summer—came to an end, a fog would shroud the meadows in the morning and we knew fall would soon be upon us. We felt an impending melancholy, yet a blue sky still 200 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

smiled at us often and the forests still wore their multicolored attire. The earth wore a coverlet of fallen gold, scarlet, and indigo leaves. The last rose of summer, a smudge of crimson paint against a fading canvas, loomed in a corner of our yard. Luxurious white and purple chrysanthemums and pink asters rose up from the remaining soil.

Flowers bring beauty to our life, along with freshness and good feelings. They truly take away “the fall’s melancholy”—our distress.

More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always.

—Claude Monet (1840–1926), French impressionist painter ƒ

Each flower is a soul opening out to nature.

—Gerard de Nerval (1808–1855), French romantic writer

ƒ

He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition,

youth and age are equally a burden.

—Plato, The Republic

ƒ

I never think of the future. It comes quickly enough.

—Albert Einstein (1879–1955), German-born American physicist ƒ

Don’t Be Afraid of Good Stress @ 201

While there’s life, there’s hope.

—Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher ƒ

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale.

—William Shakespeare (1564–1616), English playwright and poet ƒ

Only the grasshoppers made a combined whirring, as if infuriated—

such an oppressive, unceasing, insipid, dry sound. It was appropriate to the inhabiting midday heat as if literal y by it, literal y summoned by it out of the sun-smelted earth.

—Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), Russian writer

ƒ

To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt fully to understand.

—Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871), American critic and writer ƒ

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle, oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!

—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887), American clergyman

ƒ

To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts

that do often lie too deep for tears.

—William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet

ƒ

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.

—English proverb

202 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Chapter 11

Trips to the Fairyland

Come in here. All my flowers would love to see you.

—Grandma

FACTS

Asthma is increasing in the United States and around the world. The prevalence of asthma around the world has doubled in the past 15 years.33

How many people have asthma in the United States?

^ Approximately 24.7 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with asthma, with at least 7.7 million of them children under the age of 18.

^ Asthma is the leading, serious, chronic illness among children in the United States.

Nearly 1 in 13 children in the United States has asthma, and this number is growing more rapidly in preschool-age children than in any other group.34

The number of asthma-related visits to office-based physicians was 11.3 million in 2001.35 The number of hospital emergency department visits connected with asthma attacks was 1.9 million in 2002.36

The Healthy People 2010 project reports the rate of asthma hospitalizations in children under age five is 45.6 per 10,000 and 12.5 per 10,000 for children five or over and adults. The goal is to reduce these rates.37

Trips to the Fairyland @ 203

Tinkling bells outside my window woke me up in the middle of the night. I rose from my sound sleep, slid aside the vase on my windowsill filled with fragrant purple lilacs and sunny yellow tulips, and pushed open the window. As my vision adjusted to the darkness and shapes took form, I stood admiring the beautiful Fairyland in tones of shadowy indigo. My grandma had inherited this land from my great-grandmother, when at 18 years old she married my grandfather. She called it her Dream Garden. Certainly it was enchanting under the light of the moon, in its slumbering, nocturnal state. Lilacs were in bloom and their sweet, pungent aroma permeated the cool night air. The bushes were heavy with luxuriant clusters of white and purple lilacs that opened widely their tiny star-shaped flowers. They rocked in unison, embraced by the gentle breeze. Spring, in all its glory, was upon this drowsy garden.

This stunningly beautiful place was only a small part of the original Fairyland, planted by my great-grandmother. My grandmother had followed in her steps and brought there her inspiration, joy, passion, skill, happiness, and a profound love of Nature. She was so proud of her accomplishments and always delighted in showing her garden.

“Come in here,” she would say invitingly to our neighbors and friends.

“All my flowers would love to see you. Show them your kind faces and they will smile at you.”

The tinkling bells sounded louder, but they were not garden bells at all. The sounds came from a gracious nightingale, perched on the white lilac bush and singing a melodic song. I guessed that the aroma of the lilacs had intoxicated and inspired her to serenade all the living creatures, flowers, trees, and plants throughout the night.

I remember many years ago, watching my grandma sitting in her favorite rocking chair beneath a bush of fragrant