Feeling Blessed Midst Valentine Bouquets

Camellias from John and Steve

The rooms in our house are overflowing with flowers – roses, tulips, camellias, roses, cyclamen, a spring bouquet, more roses!  Every single room!  They were Valentine gifts from friends and from my beloved, as well.  I feel surrounded by cheerfulness and good wishes and promises of springtime and happiness.

I can’t help thinking that should I shuffle off this mortal coil without anyone noticing, it would be all right.  A rather morbid thought, to be sure, but it’s one I learned from my sainted mother.  More than once I heard her say at a funeral or memorial service, “All these flowers – wasted!  Bring me flowers while I’m living!”  And we did.  Yellow roses were her favorite.

Tulip Garden from Jon and Pat

I’m glad to say that flowers have arrived in abundance during my own lifetime and I have enjoyed every blossom… “as god intended” my friend Te would say. Nyel has spoiled me on many an occasion with long-stemmed red roses and I never cease to be amazed at the generosity of friends who arrive with elaborate bouquets on all sorts of occasions – as well as on non-occasions and just-because.

There have been tomes written about the meaning of flowers – Daisies: innocence and hope; Roses: love and desire; Yellow Tulips: cheerful thoughts.  Even the sorts of arrangements have meaning, from nosegays to bridal bouquets.  Speaking of nosegays, did you know that during the Victorian era a small one,  a “tussie mussie,”  might include chamomile flowers, which a woman might send to a romantic interest to tell him “Patience” whereas goldenrod represented indecision.  And I was interested to learn that the oldest evidence of formal arranging of bouquets in vases comes from ancient Egypt, and depictions of flower arrangements date to the Old Kingdom (~2500 BCE).

Roses from Kitt and Doug

In this stress-filled world of today, I’m so glad that the tradition of flower-giving continues unabated! Walking through a house filled with flowers goes a long way toward re-balancing my thoughts and putting my own corner of the world in perspective.  You just can’t be surrounded by flowers and not feel blessed!

One Response to “Feeling Blessed Midst Valentine Bouquets”

  1. Marion Freshley says:

    How beautiful Sydney! I absolutely love flowers also and they do make me feel happy. Instead of flowers we have 3 huge bouquets of beautiful pussy willows in our house which I love too. They are our first sign of spring I always say. When we had our place in Oysterville we used to go scouting for them on the peninsula. I would have one big bouquet for our Oysterville table and one for our Olympia table.

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