And now to sound like a horrible, awful, no-good son who says things like this: I should have bought my mother a Christmas present instead of agreeing to build her flower boxes. Yep, I said it. I’m a lout. An ungrateful sack of rotting kidney beans. I should have bought her socks or ear muffs or a gift certificate for plants. Something … anything! It would have been over and done with. Delivered on Christmas morning. Unwrapped, fawned over and forgotten.