Flowers
June 12, 2006

My Mom and Dad had a straightforward, ordered life. Even their weekends fell into patterns: Sunday morning: 7:30 Mass, same pew, breakfast at the Greek diner near church. The Saturday rituals were individual ones, nurtured by the fact that the town I grew up in, Royal Oak, had an amazing Farmers' Market and two municipal golf courses. During the spring and summer months, Dad would spring out of bed to sign in at the course, and Mom would get into her car to visit her friends at the Market. The alarm went off at 6:30 or so.

Mom would buy fresh eggs and dill bread, and whatever produce was in season, generally in voluminous quantities. She would deposit these staples in the car, and then case the place for flowers. Early in the season, she would fill her little car with flats of all young blooms to plunk in her condo's flowerbeds, or hanging baskets to dangle from her porch. Sometimes she would commandeer Marie and her minivan to buy in copious quantities. When she ran out of earth to plant in, she found planters to hang upon the fence, from which she coaxed cascades of impatiens. Though she lived in a condo, the watering process required at least an hour. It filled her time.

Mom had no cutting garden, but she loved flowers inside and out. Before heading home, she would dash from booth to booth, buying bachelor's buttons, baby's breath and a circus of zinnias and daisies to blend into beauty. Each bundle of flowers was wrapped in old newpapers and rubberbanded. She looked like Miss America carting them to the car.

Finally, she would hit the corner food stand, for a cup of tea and some pleasantries with the folks that shared this ritual. Then she would head home to begin her day's work.

First, she would wash and store her produce. She might make a fruit salad. If she had overbought, she would set aside some treats for her grandkids or neighbors. Then she would begin unwrapping the newspaper wrapped bouquets. Most bunches would have looked perfect as purchased, but Mom had other plans for her blooms. She would strip the leaves, trim the stems, and blend her flowers like a painter mixes paint. Old pitchers, glasses, repurposed baskets- they all made perfect homes for her dollar bouquets, reconstituted into Giverny mini-gardens.

About the time she would finish her artistry, Dad would arrive home, and Mom would make him a sandwich. I doubt that he ever noticed the bouquets. Dad was content to recover from golf by reading the paper and watching yet more golf. I am sure Mom spent many weekends hoping that Dad would want to go to a show, or out to dinner, but Dad peaked early. He was not one to wait for a meal, and he ate lunch out every day after all. Mom, on the other hand, was planted in her home. Her kids had kids, and her lunches out might be a cup of tea shared with a high chair in a kitchen. She never learned to make the plans herself, and she never had girlfriends to escape with. She had her family, and her routines. And she loved Tom, and so she would make a simple dinner for them, and watch TV until after the news. 7:30 Mass requires an early wake-up call, and it was their one standing date.

All this flooded back to me this morning as I tortured a batch of grocery flowers into submission in the kitchen. Dominick's did the mixing in my bouquet, based not on artistry, I am sure, but on profit ratio. In the store I had paused to note that a rather anemic batch of gladiolas was $4.00, and I was tempted to use them for height. Mom always shied away from them, denouncing them as funeral flowers: they do look stately at the back of a splayed display. I passed.

Mom has been dead for 8 years now. She had precious few glads at her service, but she died in the season she loved most, autumn. It was like the farmers paid their respects to her with fields of mums. They were beautiful, and she would have loved it had she not been the guest of honor at the proceedings. She would have taken home the arrangements and spread them out on her kitchen counter for reconstitution. Then she would have delivered them to friends and graves. That was Mom's way.

My Dad still jumps out of bed and heads to the golf course on Saturday. There are far fewer flowers at his home these days, and the Farmers' Market has become trendy. Mom, it turns out, was ahead of her time. In the aloneness of the condo, though, Dad seems to have realized that solitude could be a prison. These days, on Friday or Saturday- even both nights- he heads out for dinner or a movie with my aunt. (his lady friend) He learned late, but the man is still learning. Life beckons, he accepts. I am glad for my Dad, and my Aunt Sharon.