The white, lush flow­ers of an elo­quent and old dog­wood tree that sits in our neighbor’s yard float over to our side and hang in the air like paper lanterns. I see them out­side my bed­room win­dow on the sec­ond floor of our home every spring. When the sun taps the blooms and the wind gen­tly caresses their creamy petals, the dance of spring begins. It also invari­ably reminds me of Mother’s Day when both my grand­moth­ers would visit us all dressed up in their hol­i­day finest, brooches perched on the shoul­ders of their spring coats. I can still feel my youth­ful antic­i­pa­tion as I ran to greet them, drink­ing in their enthu­si­asm and per­fectly pinned attire.

“Lawwwwrie daar­ling,” my pater­nal grand­mother would exclaim as she crossed our thresh­old, her accent a mix­ture of Saint Louis-by-way-of-very-southern-parents sounded both famil­iar and for­eign. A few min­utes later my mater­nal grand­mother, a native New Yorker and school­teacher with beau­ti­ful dic­tion, would walk through the door and stop to kiss my fore­head in that won­der­fully nutur­ing way I now kiss my own children.

Brooches are a rite of the sea­son. Pin­ning a bloom to one’s jacket feels like join­ing in the cel­e­bra­tion of the renewal of life around us. As we shed our heavy win­ter armor, lit­tle pins or elab­o­rate brooches add color and tex­ture to our lighter selves. It doesn’t have to be a sweet flo­ral arrange­ment, any theme, metal or gem­stone will do. A pin should reflect your aes­thetic, your point of view.

My grand­moth­ers had their own style. One liked beau­ti­ful, costly exam­ples and the other, more del­i­cate things, mostly gifts from my grand­fa­ther. Sen­ti­ment, con­nois­seur­ship, and per­sonal style–I learned about all of them from my beloved matriarchs.

Mother’s Day always revives these happy mem­o­ries for me, I pin them on every spring and wear them proudly.