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原文：
Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia was delivered to my house in Bethesda, Md, No card or note came with it. Calls to the florist were always in vain—it was a cash purchase. After a while I stopped trying o discover the sender’s identity and just delighted in the beauty and heady perfume of that one magical, perfect white flower nestled in soft pink tissue paper.

But I never stopped imagining who the anonymous giver might be. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about someone wonderful and exciting but too shy or eccentric to make known his or her identity.

My mother contributed to these imaginings. She’d ask me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness who might be showing appreciation. Perhaps the neighbor I helped when she was unloading a car full of groceries. Or maybe it was the old man across the street whose mail I retrieved during the winter so he wouldn’t have to venture down his icy steps. As a teenager, though, I had more fun speculating that it might be a boy. I had a crush on one who had noticed me even though I didn’t know him.

When I was 17, a boy broke my heart. The night he called for the last time, I cried myself to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, there was a message scribbled on my mirror in red lipstick: “Heartily know, when half-gods go, the gods arrive.” I thought about that quotation for Emerson for a long time, and until my heart healed, I left it where my mother had written it. When I finally went to get the glass cleaner, my mother knew everything was all right again.

I don’t remember ever slamming my door in anger at her and shouting, “You just don’t understand!” Because she did understand.

One month before my high-school graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feeling ranged from grief to abandonment, fear and overwhelming anger that my dad was missing some of the most important events in my life. I became completely uninterested in my upcoming graduation, the senior-class play and the prom. But my mother, in the midst of her own grief, would not hear of my skipping any of those things.

The day before my father died, my mother and I had gone shopping for a prom dress. We ' d found a spectacular one, with yards and yards of dotted swiss in red, white and blue. It made me feel like Scarlett O’Hara, but it was the wrong size. When my father died, I forgot about the dress.

My mother didn’t. The day before the prom, I found that dress—in the right size—draped majestically over the living-room sofa. It wasn’t just delivered, still in the box. It was presented tome—beautifully, artistically, lovingly. I didn’t care if I had a new dress or not. But my mother did.

She wanted her children to feel loved and lovable, creative and imaginative, imbued with a sense that there was magic in the world and beauty even in the face of adversity. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia—lovely, strong and prefect—with an aura of magic and perhaps a bit of mystery.

My mother died ten days after I was married. I was 22. That was the day the gardenia stopped coming.

译文：

我满12周岁后的每一年生日，我都会在马里兰州家中的信箱中发现寄来一朵白色的栀子花，信封中没有信件也没有明信片，询问卖花老板是谁寄的也是无功而返，渐渐地，我打消了查出寄信人身份的念头，而只是美滋滋地欣赏着那朵近乎完美，又充满魔力的栀子花，它就静静地依偎在那柔软的粉色信封中，散发着浓郁的香气，让我为之倾倒。

然而我的思绪却从未停止过在我记忆的每一个角落搜寻着这位送花人，那些日子，我最快乐的时光似乎就是在自己的脑海中勾勒出这位创意无穷，讨人欢心而又太害羞孤僻，而不愿意让我知道他的真实身份的那个人。

我的妈妈也会陪着我在那想象，她问我是否是因为我做了什么善事而别人在悄悄地感谢我，或许是因为我帮过邻居阿姨卸下了满满一车的货物，抑或是因为一连整个冬天都帮着街对面的老伯取信，而这样他就不用每天走下那串结冰的台阶，而我那时，作为一个怀春的少女，更愿意将那个人想象成是哪个男孩，那时我正在暗恋一个男孩，他只是看过我几眼，而我甚至不知道他是谁。

我17岁的那年，一个男孩伤透了我的心，那天晚上，他最后一次和我通完话后，我大哭一场，然后沉沉睡去，当我第二天早上醒来的时候，发现在我的镜子上用红口红涂着的一句话：亲爱的，当那个不属于你的人离开时，那个真正属于你的人就会来临。我反复咀嚼着这句爱默生的名言，直到我心头的伤口痊愈，当我妈妈看到我去拿玻璃清洁剂的时候，她就知道我又恢复正常了。

我甚至不记得我曾经在房里暴怒地一边敲打着我的门一边对她吼：“你根本就不明白！”因为我觉得她其实什么都明白。

在我高中毕业典礼一个月前，我的爸爸死于心脏病，那段日子，我时而低声抽泣，时而嚎啕大哭，时而恐惧，时而暴怒，我觉得我的爸爸错过了我人生中最重要的事情之一，对那即将到来的毕业典礼，毕业班集体演出，还有舞会，我都提不起一丝兴趣，而我的妈妈，即使她正身处痛苦的深渊，也不愿意听到我提起任何不愿去的想法。

就在我父亲去世的前一天，我妈妈和我一起去购买毕业舞会的裙子，那天我们发现了一件精心设计的裙子，一码一码的细绒点缀着整条裙子，红色，蓝色，还有白色，穿在身上让我感觉就像乱世佳人中的斯嘉丽，但是很可惜，它的大小却不合我的身，父亲死后，我便把这条裙子忘得一干二净。#p#分页标题#e#

但我妈妈没有，就在舞会的前一天，我又重新看到了那条裙子，大小正合适，华丽地叠放在卧室的沙发上，它就这样美丽地，优雅地，爱意融融地展现在我眼前，我其实并不在乎我是否有一条新裙子，而我的妈妈却在乎。

她希望她的孩子们感到她们是被爱的，并且值得被爱的，她希望我们的心中充满创造力和想象力，即使在严酷的逆境中，仍然对这个世界充满幻想，感到这个世界充满了魔力，事实上，我的妈妈正是希望她的孩子们 将自己看做一支栀子花--可爱，坚强，完美无瑕，浑身上下散发着魔力的气息和丝丝神秘。

那年我22岁，我结婚了，就在我婚后的第十天，我的母亲去世了，从那以后，信箱里再也没有出现过栀子花。