Flower Show, Part 1: Memories
WALT
Casual, comfortably rumpled
Among the Queens and Empresses that are the orchid plants.
Soft voice, easily sharing
Years of information absorbed from his father and his own doing.
Big hugs, generous laughter,
Moving with soft-footed ease among the plants and flowers.
An encyclopedic knowledge
Tempered by simple joy in a beautiful bloom or rare species,
Making the temperamental orchidaceae into friendly companions,
Making the world a more beautiful place.
Paphs, vandas, cats, cyms, phals, oncidiums, ladyslippers…
There’s magic in names like these:
For one week each year,
He made an enchanted world from a concrete floor.
And all the other weeks,
Raising orchids, raising children
(Both with lovely results)
Loving God, loving his fellowman.
It’s a big void.
Not just for us flower peeps,
But for all whose lives he touched,
Even if but for a moment.
But we can joy that he is resting in the garden of God,
Free from pain, rejoicing in victory.
And meanwhile
The next generation is growing, learning, knowing.
Casual, comfortably rumpled, sharing
The knowledge and wisdom of three generations
And the transient beauty of a rare orchid flower,
Common as sunset.
Mingled perfumes in my hair.
A sharp cologne.
Waves of Casablanca lilies and old-school roses,
Even a bleeding heart, solid red.
There aren't many of them left any more, the old time florists. You'd know them by the inevitable callous on the side of the middle finger, the slightly funny walk, result of too many years on cold concrete floors. The flowers like it cold.
Successions of "the girls" pass,
A family all its own. Memories are forged
In the fog of holiday deadlines and ninety-hour weeks.
Some answered phones, some swept the floor, some ran the shop.
All of them have the bond of working in that place,
Of quick tempers and shared pizza and transient art,
Perfectionists grappling with the realities of supply and demand and time.
He started with fruit baskets, a quaint anachronism now.
His was a neighborhood shop, with funeral baskets and church flowers outweighing the extravagant parties and celebrations of the more stylish places. These were flowers for my mom, my wife, my boyfriend, my two girlfriends...Flowers for the wedding, the anniversary, the new baby, the birthday, the hospital. Everyday bread and butter work.
Retired, the store closed, he still worked with flowers. Through the joint replacement surgeries, the pain, and finally the grip of terminal illness, he divided his time between the wholesalers and the grandchildren, the work-a-day flowers and the extravagant lily bouquets when one of "the girls" suffered a loss.
He was a small man. He had a big heart. I'll miss him.
(I thought about this today. I was helping to set up for the Philadelphia Flower Show, and a retired gentleman was there helping as well. He's one of the old school florists I talked about above, whose shop was in a somewhat more rarefied atmosphere than the one in which I worked, but who was one of my teachers at the five week flower course I took at the wholesaler's back in 1983. When he started talking about how he preferred each flower to have its own space (rather than the current clumped/pave style) it brought back such memories of his lesson.
To a large extent, the floral gentlemen are a vanishing breed; this one suffers from severe macular degeneration and retired more than a decade ago. I am a little verklempt, but so glad I had the chance to talk to him.)
