Forgotten Flowers

With his wife’s memory lost due to a traumatic brain injury, Daniel Kilgore volunteered at Magnolia Garden, an assisted living facility, hoping he could learn how to resurrect his wife’s fading memories. He was drawn to three residents, Delores Samuels, Mary Hillman, and Sandra Cotton. Why were they placed there, only to be forgotten? Daniel knew they had lives that deserved to be remembered. Mary’s husband, George, Sandra’s son, Jim, and Delores’s son Fred would endure their own emotional epiphany causing them to go to the Gardens for atonement. Would it be in time? His wife’s caretaker, Dr. Jane Lincoln, would expose Kilgore’s own emotional confliction between his past and their future. He would struggle with the memories of his past and the chance to make new memories.

With unconscionable greed, George Hillman destroyed his wife’s dream of being a mother. As her health and mind faded, and faced with round the clock home care, George placed Mary in Magnolia Gardens. He took solace in the arms of Gilda Ellis, a decision that would have dire consequences. 

Sandra Cotton was more of a mother than a grandmother to her son, Jim’s two children, Samantha and William. She soothed their scrapes and bruises, eased the pains of puppy love, and nurtured their dreams. An unwed mother at eighteen was more than Jim’s wife, Carrie would take. Samantha was sent to live with her sister in North Carolina and put the baby up for adoption. The sound of Samantha's voice, hearing her laughter was the very air her grandmother lived for, without it Sandra wallowed in depression, and eventually lost any sense of reality. Through a friend, Jim and Carrie placed Jim’s mother in Magnolia Gardens.

Delores Samuels struggled to live on her own. Her son, Fred, traveled extensively due to work and had little time to look in on her. Fred’s wife, Shelia, was devoted to herself and offered no relief. Delores’s other son, Mitchell and his wife, Brenda, were her primary caretakers. Mitchell’s untimely death in an automobile accident in which Brenda held Shelia responsible for forced Fred to focus on his mother’s decline mental state. Sandra’s care was more than Brenda and Fred could handle. Sandra’s doctor recommended they place Sandra in Magnolia Gardens.
He volunteered at Magnolia Gardens to give dignity and worth to the forgotten. Learning to draw out old memories from frail minds was Daniel Kilgore’s other reason. His wife, Vivian, a paraplegic was suffering from memory loss. A visit to his mother would clear the other.
When Brenda Samuels told Fred about her visit with his mother, Fred faced his failings. He didn’t like what he saw. When she needed him the most, Fred had failed his mother, but no more.
Fate would play a cruel hand in the three men’s plan, but she would be much kinder to Daniel and Jane. She convinced him old memories and new ones were not mutually exclusive. He convinced her risk making new ones.

Title page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One -
The flower sits among others whose time has come. 
Once radiant and regal in appearance, emitting a heavenly sweet fragrance.
Chapter 1 - Magnolia Gardens
Chapter 2 - The Beginnings of Guilt
Chapter 3 - Daniel’s plan 
Chapter 4 - Dolores Samuels’ path to Magnolia Gardens 
Chapter 5 - Mary Hillman’s path to Magnolia Gardens 
Chapter 6 - Sandra Cotton’s path to Magnolia Gardens 
Chapter 7 - Kilgore’s friends 
Chapter 8 - The Nightmare 
Chapter 9 - The Failures 
Chapter 10 - Confliction 
Chapter 11 - Maternal betrayal 
Chapter 12 - Vivian’s gift 
Part Two - 
Its color is gone, petals faded and frail, 
it lingers on, forgotten with the coming of a new spring. 
—Michael J. Sullivan 
Chapter 13 - Kilgore’s project 
Chapter 14 - The Set-up 
Chapter 15 - Friends 
Chapter 16 - Confrontation 
Chapter 16 - The Meetings 
Chapter 18 - Dolores 
Chapter 19 - The Story 
Chapter 20 - Revelation 
Chapter 21 - The Epiphany 
Chapter 22 - A Trip to Redemption 
Chapter 23 - A Need to Finish 
Chapter 24 - Destiny 
Chapter 25 - New Beginnings
Chapter 26 - Nine Months Later in the Spring 
Epilog
The Author
A Note of Thanks