Thank You For the Flowers

There was a time when The Seniol had earned the nickname "Florist" because of a sizable chunk of his earnings he spent on flowers. He didn't need a reason to buy a made-to-order bouquet: carefully chosen one with the right combination of flowers making sure there were never any red roses - only pink, orange and yellow ones. Let's just say he was very popular with the florists of his neighborhood.

After a really long while, he sent us a bouquet of pink roses - a bunch of fresh ones with a lot of green leaves and thorns carefully wrapped in cellophane secured in place with a light orange ribbon. The package arrived around 5:00 p.m. with two chocolate bars. I told LG, "This is a gift for you from your papa. He misses you and loves you very much." I'm at a loss of choosing the right words to describe the sequence of events after this. He hugged the bouquet keeping it close to his chest carefully touching the pink flowers one by one. He walked up to the photo frame we have in the living room of LG and his dad, and sat next to it. He was beaming not letting anyone touch the flowers. After showing the bars of chocolate I kept them away and got a smaller one instead. Then he walked up to his grand-pa asking him to remove the wrapper. The usually chocolate-jealousy kid this time went over to his dad's picture and placed the chocolate on his mouth. Satisfied he had taken a bit, he then proceeded to relish it himself. He showed off the flowers to anyone who came by last evening and started his day today by caressing the flowers. I was touched by his gesture. And I now know that he misses his papa a lot!