That Day I Shouldn’t Have Picked Lilies of the Valley in the Forest

France 🇫🇷 Said We Were Fine. The Germans 🇩🇪 Knew Better.

Dear readers,

There are some childhood memories that stick with you for reasons you only understand much later.

This one begins in a quiet German forest, on a soft May morning, with my family and a basket full of lilies of the valley.

It should have been a peaceful story — and for a while, it was.

But something happened that day. Something we didn’t notice at first.

Not in the woods, not during the walk, not even when we got home.

The signs came slowly.

And the moment we understood… well, I’ve never looked at those flowers quite the same way since.

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It started like one of those mornings that smell… well, like May.

Fresh, a little damp, with the kind of soft light that makes everything look gentler than it really is.

We were in the forest, deep in the green hush of Schifferstadt, and we had the whole place to ourselves. Which was odd.

Normally, on the 1st of May, that patch of woods would have had a few German families — quietly rustling through the undergrowth, children half-whispering, mums crouched over white blossoms with baskets on their arms.

But that year? Nobody. Not a soul.

Which, for us, was amazing.

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Back When the Woods Were Quiet for a Reason

We were French. Living in West Germany.

My dad was stationed in Speyer, a gorgeous imperial town on the Rhine famous for its Romanesque cathedral.

The forest of Schifferstadt wasn’t far. And a few years earlier, on a random spring walk, we’d found this patch — a secret garden of wild lily of the valley.

Since then, every May 1st, we’d go back.

My mum and I in the forest near Schifferstadt, picking lilies of the valley

So that morning, we did what we always did. We took our baskets, our bags, even a few paper napkins in case things got out of hand (they did), and we picked.

And picked. And picked. The lilies were everywhere. We couldn't believe our luck.

We didn’t question the silence.

If anything, we thought — proudly — that we’d beaten the crowds. “They’re all sleeping in,” my mum said. “Or maybe they don’t know it’s the perfect time.”

Perfect time, yes. For flowers. And for radioactive fallout.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We got home around lunchtime, arms full of spring.

Honestly, the whole house smelled like bottled happiness.

That delicate, peppery sweetness of lily of the valley? It took over every room.

My mum arranged the bouquets in vases, jars, mugs — anything that could hold water.

My dad even joked that we should open a flower shop. We laughed.

A bouquet of muguet © French Moments

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What the Lilies of the Valley Didn’t Tell Us

Then the phone rang.

And that’s where the mood changed.

Not dramatically. No shouting, no breaking dishes, nothing like that.

Just a pause.

My mum picked up the receiver, and after a few seconds of polite greetings — in German, because she was good like that — I saw her face shift.

Not panic. Not yet. Just... a crease between her eyebrows that hadn’t been there a second before.

She didn’t say much at first. She listened. Nodded. Said “Danke schön, Jutta.” And then she hung up.