My mother's mother, who insisted on being called Nana rather than the aging "g" word, had the most incredible rock garden. The street may have smelled like meat packing and exhaust, but once you passed the long narrow cavern between her two-story home and the one next door, there was color and beauty crammed into every cooperative inch.
In our Catholic-Italian-German-Polish neighborhood the only other place to see that kind of color was the funeral home. With an extended family in a close-knit community, it seemed there was always an aging, unrelated, "Uncle" being laid to rest.
The flowers were as large and showy as the widow's grief. Giant carnation horseshoes with large ribbon messages were a frequent tribute. Never a fan of open caskets, I spent many a wake "studying" the flowers while my parents paid their respects.
Red roses and carnations still smell like funeral homes to me today. At that time, flowers were an inground thing. Either they were planted or someone else was about to be stuck in the ground.
When we moved to the country, I learned quickly that picking bouquets of daisies could make my mother very happy. I pronounced them my favorite flower.
Thus it was a large bouquet of daisies that appeared on my desk when I was an intern in the New York State Legislature. Our office was small. My boss was an all-business, straight-arrow who truly cared about his constituents. He spent the majority of his time in the district and none in the Albany night life.
My fiance had come to town the night before, attended several legislative receptions with my friends and became ridiculously, dangerously drunk. Details are not necessary, but I will forever be grateful to the downstate assemblymen who carried Prince Charming out of the hotel bathroom and to the car before the manager could make good on his threat of arrest. The next morning I was torn between being furious with the idea that he likely didn't even remember me returning his ring and the fear that my boss would have heard of the spectacle.
Assemblyman Proud came back from a meeting, handed me a stack of papers to go through and started heading into his office. Just as I released the breath I'd been holding, he said over his shoulder "From what I hear it's going to take a lot more than daisies to get him out of this one."
It may be a surprise that we married anyway, but not that we divorced eight years later.
My daughter loved it when "we" got flowers during my single parent days. I felt no need to inform her the blooms were either a nudge to move things forward or a penance for misdeeds. The real message rarely came on the florist card.
I was remarried when I learned to enjoy the simple beauty of a bouquet. I worked at a luxury resort where the head of the landscaping division became my favorite colleague. His deep love for his work was reflected in every random bouquet he pulled together for his wife, his daughters, various secretaries around the company... and me. Rog has the same passion for various creatures he harvests from the ocean, but they don't smell or look as good in a vase.
On the day of my 40th birthday party, he showed up on the front stairs in big rubber boots, shorts and a tank top, carrying two 10-gallon white plastic buckets overflowing with blooms and greenery. "This is to help you decorate for tonight," he said and darted back down the front porch stairs to finish the day's tasks and get ready for the party. We brought Nana's garden indoors that night. There were flowers in every room.
The house was transformed.
Our professional roles have changed in the last five years, but my friendship with Rog remains the gift it was that day.
We had our usual weekly lunch yesterday afternoon. He's leaving on a mission trip to India on Monday, I leave for Western New York on Friday. I'll be sharing my birthday celebration there with my niece Lauren.
I was taking a day-after-the-concert nap later that day when I heard Charlie answer the door. He came back with a simple vase overflowing with peach, purple, cinnamon and every shade of green.
"If a late birthday wish is belated, is an early one elated?" Rog's note asked.
Elated sums it up nicely.



Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs