Flowers From the Soul

Back when my sister first opened her flower store, I would go in every day to help. The shop was tucked away in a strip mall, in between a vetinary clinic and a Chinese take out restaurant. Afternoons lulls would find me perched on my stool at the counter, slumped over the computer with my chin on my hand. Business was slow in the beginning, so often I would while away my time on the computer trying not to nap or people watching out the window lined front of the store. That was when I had first seen Jim.

I watched as a car slowly pulled in a parking space directly across from the shop. A thin graying man got out and hitched his too large pants up as he turned and deliberately surveyed the front of the store with a scowl upon his face. He then turned and pulled an undscribable object from the front seat of his car and advanced menacingly toward our door. He striated determinedly up to my counter as I trying my best to unwind my legs from around the base of my stool and scramble to a standing position.

"BAM", he slams the object down on the counter with force. "What can I help you with?", I ask in my best customer service voice, wondering if I would be protected from any harm if I just duck down behind the thin counter between us. "Yes, I got some flowers from here a week ago and they died." I dare take my eyes off his angry face long enough to look at the object he had dropped down before me. It is one of our boxes and whatever strange object inside had a few droopy brown flowers projecting from it. Not knowing how to handle this I meekly answer, "Hang on.", and run to get my sister from were she was working in the back room.

"Heidi", I hiss, " there is a guy out there- and he is MAD!" Having already heard our limited conversation, Sis drops the vases she was unpacking with a rustle, and hurries out to the front.

"Is there a problem here?", she politely asks in a more assertive manor. "I got these flowers from here and they died", the man repeats with a glint in his eye. "Yes", Sis answers, live flowers do die." "It's to be expected, they do not last forever." "Well....", the man stammers as he is unwrapping his bundle on the counter. I have to step closer to figure out what it is he has unveiled. The brown lump smells slightly and looks vaguely familiar. At this point my Sister breaks out in pealing laughter. Grumpy man is trying his hardest not to smile, forcing the corners of his mouth down. "I know flowers die, I just want new ones in this same container."

After Jim happily leaves with a fresh arrangement, Sis tells me his wife, Gloria, had come in the prior week to order an arrangement for Jims leave of absents party. He was being forced to take off time from work early due to cancer. His co-workers had found an old petrified leather boot and Sis had created an arrangement in it complete with flowers sticking out of the cracks in it's soul. Even sick, Jim had a very good sense of humor. He never did get to go back to his office.

Jim and Gloria were regular customers and better yet fequent visitors to the shop after that. They soon became Sis's fast friends. Together or singularly they would come in and sit on Sis's plush velvet couch to be surrounded by flowers to self comfort themselves after cancer treatments. It was there they planned Jim's funeral arrangements while he was still well enough to make decisions.

The last time I seen Jim was when I delivered him an arrangement to their house. I was in a hurry as I waved at Gloria out trimming her lilac bushes in the yard and carried the flowers into their house. I was not prepared for the wasted grey slip of a man with tubes and hoses coming out of him in the hospital bed propped in front of the window, were he could watch Gloria in the garden outside. I wish I would of taken the time to sit and visit with him but once again the chicken in me made me bolt for the door in haste.

That was an incredibly hard funeral for my Sis to do. She had good idea's of what Jim would have liked but she labored long and hard over the perfection of every arrangement. And of course there were a lot of them, as Jim had a lot of friends.

I let out my own sigh of relief after we had gotten all the flowers delivered to his wake on time. Now I had thought, I can just sweep up the floor and clean up the disheveled shop a little and Sis can go home and get some rest she has gone with out for too long.

Instead to my surprise I see her start an another arrangement. A HUGE rose arrangement. I was delighted that someone had ordered that spendy of an order of non-funeral arrangement until I walked over to read the card-

"Cry not for me my darling, for today I dance with angles".

Jim had ordered flowers to be delivered to Gloria on his funeral day.