It’s been said that four-leaf clovers bring good luck. I don’t know about any of that, but they sure are fun to look for….

My mother always loved to hunt for four-leaf clovers. Years ago when my kids were small,  she’d  come over in the summer, offering to help with the weeding in the front yard. Invariably, she’d wind up searching through a patch of clover, looking for a four-leaf prize. She’d always find one.

One time she found a five-leafer! From that time on, she’d check the same spot to find more anomalies. Sometimes even six leaves.  As she told me, it tends to repeat on the same plant, so once you find one, it’s likely there will be more.

Happy times. Mom was so excited when she found them and so were we.

During a family gathering, we decided to have a contest, to see who could find one first. Naturally that was mom because she knew just where to look. We kept going anyway, to see who came in second, third, etc. My brother Rich was last. Try as he might he could not find one. His wife found one with five leaves. He became increasingly frustrated, almost angry, but kept searching. He just wasn’t stopping until he had one in his hand.

Suddenly he burst out laughing from the other side of the yard. He found one all right, but the fourth leaf was short and stunted, making the whole thing appear deformed. He couldn’t stop laughing. Soon we were all laughing along with him, because his laugh was so contagious.

I pressed all of the clover we found that day in a heavy book. That Christmas when they were long forgotten, I presented them to each person, within tiny frames and festively wrapped. When my brother opened his, he burst out laughing all over again. He laughed and laughed, and so did we.

After all this time, he still has it displayed on a shelf in his living room.

Although they have faded, I’m sure you can guess which one was his wife’s and which was his!

Years later, my mother told me a bit of the story behind it all.  It was a hobby for her. She was intrigued by four-leaf clovers ever since she found her first one as a young girl . She’d look for them wherever there was a patch of clover. She pressed them carefully, and created a notebook full of her finds.

One day she showed the notebook to her father, who was prone to mood swings. He told her it was a dumb hobby and the notebook was a stupid thing to do. She was so embarrassed and hurt by his words, she tore it up and threw it all in the trash.

I cried when she told me this. Tears fill my eyes now as I write these words. What a shame she felt compelled to toss away a part of who she was. I would have loved to have seen  it. Imagine how big it would be after all these years gone by.

In spite of all that, still…to this day, whenever a patch of clover catches her eye, I’ll see her pause and look down, inspecting it to see if there just might be one in there….

~ Carolyn

“Life isn’t easy. Together we can make it better.”