My grandmother's favorite flower was Lily of the Valley. Lily of the Valley has a pretty distinctive scent. They grow in the shade and back in St. Louis, where my grandparents were from, my grandfather had Lily of the Valley 'volunteers' growing under the porch of his mother's (my great-grandmother's) house. He used to smell them as soon as they'd start to bloom in the spring and crawl under the porch to gather some for my grandmother. They were a funny couple, always playfully bickering and more than occasionally really grumbling. Whenever I think of him crawling under the porch to get her flowers I have to smile. Once they moved to Miami, where they don't grow unless you force the pips in winter, she had to make do with the fragrance, soap or sachets of Lily of the Valley. They split up in their early sixties but when my grandmother died at 69, he followed after her less than six months later. He still had Lily of the Valley scented sachets in the house among his things.
