My husband brings me flowers every week. We have been married for more than ten years, even though we’ve just stepped over the thirty year mark, and our relationship has been getting better and better with the years. If you know me, you know that I am emotional and love love stories, happy endings, and cheesy movies. I’m a fanatic of the Twilight series and I have seen Pride and Prejudice twice in three days just this last weekend; I guess that’s explanation enough. Jeff’s personality complements mine perfectly; he’s pragmatic and realistic, no nonsensical, and terribly honest. If he compliments you, you better believe it because he means what he says.
I am a Sagittarius and he’s a Capricorn. My centaur inner self has learned to live a little more with her feet on the ground, and his inner Faun has learned to deal with my endless questioning and my daydreaming. So he brings me flowers every week. In the early months of our marriage, when we were broke college students, he used to buy the cheapest flowers he could afford: carnations. I hate those poor carnations, but I have a very good reason–they remind me of the cemetery. Their perfume can take me back twenty-six years to my grandfather’s funeral, so I deeply dislike them. I guess I might have hurt Jeff’s feelings when I told him not to bring me those flowers anymore. But he didn’t give up.
He sometimes sends me flowers when it’s not my birthday or anniversary, just because. Once an acquaintance was visiting and asking me how I could possible deal with his being gone for six months of the year, when the doorbell rang and a delivery man handed me the most gorgeous arrangement in the world. The lady changed the subject and has never ever criticised my husband’s job-at least not to my face.
A few months ago Jeff started bringing five or six bundles of flowers at once. I mean, not prepared or anything, just the flowers you get at the grocery store. I thought he only brought them home so the house would look nice (he LOVES decorating our house), and I hurt his feelings again. He brought them for me, not the house. I then asked him not to bring too many bundles at once, or not at all because it took me forever to cut the stems and take out the dead leaves. I saw it as more work for me, and not as a gift.
Yes, I can find the tiniest little thing to complain about and I do it tirelessly. But here you go Jeff, I’m sorry, and thanks for not giving up and bringing flowers even when I was so rude to you. I loved seeing you come home with arms full of flowers, especially the pink stargazer lilies. They’re so hard to find, and you would search everywhere for them to bring me some every week.
The flowers you bought before leaving have all withered away; there only remains one single lilly, faded pink but still gorgeous. I feel like the Beast on “Beauty and the Beast” because I’ve been sadly watching the petals drop from the flowers day by day until only the one flower remains steadfast and fragrant.
There’s only one left, and I wish it could stay alive for these weeks we’ll be apart. When you bring me flowers again, I promise I won’t complain because you bring me too many. You could even bring me carnations; I will just hold my breath when I walk by them.