Confessions of a Woman Who Bought Her Own Mother’s Day Bouquet

Jean spent an hour staring at her keyboard, waiting for a theme to behave itself and show up. It finally did, wearing petals. Maybe it was the Mother’s Day bouquets stacked on the concierge’s desk, or the tangerine roses she bought herself, or the memory of a Tom Jones look‑alike sending her miniature rosebuds decades ago. Whatever the reason, flowers marched in and took over—as they tend to do in Jean’s life—demanding to be written about….AI

I’ve been drinking coffee in front of my keyboard for an hour, and I hadn’t written a single word until now. No theme was jelling in my head until I decided to write about flowers. Saturday I’d been over to the other building, where the concierge’s desk was completely covered with Mother’s Day floral deliveries. Except for one bouquet—the one our resident retired lawyer sent to all the ladies here at the Continuum Care Community. He does that for every holiday, and when I thanked him for his thoughtfulness, he said it makes him happy. I replied, “It makes us happy too.”

Never being a mother, I’ve never gotten flowers for the holiday unless you count the tangerine roses I bought myself last weekend. If anyone asks about them, I’ll joke that they were from the dogs in past chapters of my life: Levi, Cooper, Jason, Sarah, Cindy, Jody, Scottie, King, and Blackie. With the exception of the two dogs from my childhood, they all had human names—which should tell you something about the surrogate‑baby relationships I had with the dogs in my life.

When I met my husband, I was working as a floral designer and continued for another decade into our relationship, giving me access to all the flowers anyone could want to bring home. So my husband got in the habit of never buying me flowers, especially given the fact that it took me five years after I left the floral industry before I even wanted fresh flowers back in my life. By then the mold was set. No flowers from Don. He was also not known for giving romantic gifts. Long‑time readers might remember the time he gave me an auxiliary gas tank for my pickup truck for Valentine’s Day when I actually longed for a single red rose. More precisely I longed for the symbolism of getting a single red rose. Yes, I was one of those women who thought a soulmate should be able to read my mine.

Other than corsages for proms way back in high school, no guy has ever given me flowers—with one notable exception. Back during the first six months after meeting Don, I was also dating one of his friends. I’ve told this story before, but briefly: the three of us often found ourselves hanging out together on Fridays after bowling. It was where we all met on the same night. His friend looked like he shared the same gene pool as Tom Jones. His first name was even Tom, and he had the same voice quality. He took full advantage of looking like the famous singer in his fashion choices. “It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, It's not unusual to have fun with anyone, but when I see you hanging about with anyone, It's not unusual to see me cry…” Oh my god, I can still see him serenading me with that song. Tom made the bold move of sending me a bouquet of two dozen pink miniature rosebuds to the flower shop where I worked. Don’t think that didn’t make a splash—seeing a delivery van from another shop bring flowers to one of their employees.

Romance novels (and later, movies) have programmed women for a couple of centuries to be wooed with flowers. And I suspect one reason the custom has held up as long as it has is because it’s an easy gift to give a woman for holidays and special occasions. Easier back in my day when a guy would call up a flower shop and get something delivered. They can still do that, of course, or they can just go to a supermarket and pick out a bouquet themselves. I’ve seen guys at Meijer struggling to choose just the right bunch, and I struggle not to jump in and help them.

The kids of many of my fellow residents here must have the nearby flower shops in their contacts lists, because it’s not uncommon to see deliveries on our concierge’s desk waiting for the recipient to come down and pick them up. And no one seems to be in a hurry to do so, giving everyone a chance to check the card to see who it’s addressed to—a sure sign someone is having a special day. My oldest niece has made me the talk of the day on several occasions, and I have to admit it’s a good feeling to have everyone ask who sent the flowers and why. Not to mention the fact that I really do love having fresh flowers in the house. And I make them last, reworking arrangements as some of the flowers wilt and others are still good. For example, the greenery in the bouquet above is what was left over from my mid-April birthday bouquet. Its the third reincarnation. Last week that greenery was the backdrop for three tulips that were given out at a Memorial held here for one of my mahjong players. 

A few people scoff at their kids “wasting money on something that doesn’t last,” but to me a CCC is the ideal place for fresh flowers, for the same reason they’re so appropriate at funerals. Flowers remind us of the cycle of life. “To every thing there is a season…” When you think about it, flowers don’t truly die—they still hold seeds within their dried-up blooms that could spark life again. When I had a house with an open field-like area in the back I'd bury the heads of flower shop flowers and many of them did come up. And, who knows, maybe the Great Unknown does something similar with some unseen essence we leave behind.

At births and weddings, we use flowers to symbolize growth and our hopes and dreams for the future. At birthdays and anniversaries, they remind us to cherish our benchmarks. They are life‑affirming. The connection between the timeless cycle of birth, growth, and transformation and flowers may be symbolic, but it’s pure perfection in the realm of symbolism.

But even though I was formally schooled in the language of flowers at Hixen’s Floral Design School in Cleveland, Ohio, as a young woman who once received a bouquet of miniature pink rosebuds—known to symbolize innocence and the new beginnings of romance—all that went out the window when they were delivered. I was as giddy as any other young woman that my coworkers saw proof positive that I actually had a boyfriend. And that’s only one example of the power of flowers.

Maybe that’s why flowers still have such power, even after all these years and all these seasons. They don’t last long, but they don’t need to. Their job is to remind us that beauty is worth noticing, that love is worth expressing, and that every life—even ours—keeps blooming in ways we don’t always see until someone hands us a bouquet. And if that bouquet happens to come from a niece, a neighbor, or nine dogs with suspiciously human names, well… the heart doesn’t care. It just opens, the way flowers do. © 

 See you next Wednesday.