Flowers

Today I ordered flowers for my mom's memorial service this Sunday. My dad was going to do it, but he's been in a lot of pain these past couple days, so I offered so he could rest for awhile.

I walked over to a local flower shop, on a mission to order two arrangements - one for the altar and one for the table when people arrive and sign in (apparently you have a guest book for these type of things. Who knew!). My dad gave me specific instructions - the one for the altar should be two feet long, and they should both be spring colors.

So I go in and explain what I'm looking for. I said everything my dad told me to say, but the person helping me is confused about the altar piece, so she had me look through this book of flower arrangements. She pointed out arrangements to go on top of caskets, and arrangements that rest on big easels, and she showed me all different sizes and styles and colors. She asked me tons of clarifying questions, and I kept trying to answer them as well as I could, but I was overwhelmed with all the choices, and all the decisions that had to be made about something that I thought would be easy. I wanted to scream "I don't know! I've never done this before!" but instead my eyes started to well up.

By this point she was just as confused as I was so she called over her boss, the owner of the shop. I explained what I needed and the owner understood it right away - she knew what I meant when I said I wanted an arrangement for the altar. We finish all the paperwork, and I paid for the flowers and got out of there (though there was a little more confusion when I paid for my mother's funeral flowers with her credit card. Maybe paying for things with your dead mother's credit card looks a little shady...).

But I did it. I ordered flowers for my mother's funeral, and I did it all without breaking down in sobs in the middle of the flower shop (though I was pretty close. If I hadn't had some time to pull myself together while the worker got the owner, the poor flower shop workers would have had to comfort a crying woman). Now on to the next thing on the list of "things I'd never thought I'd have to do." Here's hoping it's something a little more pleasant than ordering funeral flowers.