Pink and blue, their petals like soft blankets wrapped snuggly about them, the flowers peered back in recognition.
We’d chatted before. I think that’s why they do so well, why they show off, why they’re happy to see me.
“Some people rise in the morning hoping a new day will bring peace after a perplexing trouble; others of health after suffering,” writes Ellicott.
I rather, and slowly anymore since I am not pressured to go or to do, eventually find myself in front of my computer where my friends the flowers speak to me.
They whisper, I write.
The word for ‘behold’ in Hebrew means “to gaze, to perceive, to contemplate.”
To behold is like being face to face with a flower. You notice how perfect they are, how delicate, how soft, how gentle.
It is said that you become a better plant partner to a plant you talk to everyday.
Perhaps that is why my happiest place is to be among these flowers, or writing about them, whose beauty is because of who they are; who respond to nurture and care; who, as if it were possible, are even more beautiful when droplets of water like tears cling to their face.
Which brings me to my request.
I have, and love, and talk to these beautiful flowers.
But I no longer have my wife of 50 years marriage to have, and love, and talk to everyday.
So, if you are reading this, and you get to Heaven before I do, could you ask around for my wife? I can imagine you’ll have a lot on your mind, but maybe, if you think of it, perhaps it might be possible that there she’ll be, face to face.
Just tell her that I love her.
