In my life, I’ve only had two different people ever have flowers delivered to me — Ed and Chris. Ed had flowers delivered twice to me, but to my parents’ house, which never really felt like they were a delivery for me as they were for the house, as bad or ungrateful as that may sound. “Every girl should have flowers delivered to her at least once,” my brother proclaimed, as he proudly admired the massive bouquet he bought for my high school graduation. It really was a spectacular display of all the colors of the rainbow… all just for me. It was a bit overwhelming to think about how much time and thought he put into this delivery and selection… because as I knew then and now, he would obsess over every last detail. The bouquet even came with a helium “Congratulations!” balloon. That was my Ed for me.
The second time I had flowers delivered for me, it was the first week of December 2011, and a large bouquet of white roses was delivered to my office. The office manager placed the open bouquet in a white pitcher at my desk, and when I returned from my meeting, they were sitting right there in front of my computer at midday. I was shocked. No one ever has flowers sent to me other than Ed. Did Ed send these? How did he find out my office address? Then I wondered if there was some mistake and that these really weren’t for me, so I checked the address note and confirmed that yes, these were for me. I opened the note attached, and the mysterious message with the funny grammar and punctuation was definitely not my brother.. and that’s when I knew for certain it was Chris.
That was over five years ago now, and now, in January 2017, Chris is still sending me flowers at the most random times on the most random days. Today, I cannot even count the number of times he has had flowers delivered to me. When I left my last job, I had so many vases that I had to give all of them away. At my current job, I have four under my desk and at least five in the office kitchen. Sometimes, he will send them for 538-day anniversaries or other random days of his choosing. Other times, he will send them the week of Valentine’s Day and not on Valentine’s Day. Other times, he will send them just to make my female colleagues jealous because that’s the way Chris is (“It’s always like it’s your honeymoon period!” one former colleague at my last company half-mocked, half-joked). Sometimes, I’d even catch myself feeling guilty opening yet another box of flowers for me — at my last company and my current company. “Your boyfriend/fiance/husband is always sending you flowers!” the women would exclaim. Yes, he certainly is.
Today, for probably the 40th time, I had two dozen long stemmed roses of assorted colors waiting for me from Chris. After a while, the novelty isn’t quite there anymore, but the same feeling of “Wow, do I really deserve this?” still comes. I don’t really think I am deserving of all these flowers and generosity in the same way I didn’t think I deserved it when Ed did it for me those two times, but I still never get over how beautiful these flowers are. These flowers are representative of love. I love my baby.