Today, for Valentine's Day, my daughter sent me a bunch of carnations that grew on the side of a volcano in Bogota, Colombia. She didn't even realize how much I love carnations...
When I first started dating My Awesome Husband Greg, he was working at Perkins' Flowers. He was tall and skinny back then. He still is, but then he had chin-length hair, which he wore parted in the middle. I thought he looked like the guy in Three Dog Night. (Coincidentally, "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" was our song.) He always wore boot-cut jeans with his "shit kickers," and a tee shirt. I remember a tan corduroy jacket with a belt. My heart did cartwheels whenever I saw him.
It was early spring, and we liked to walk at night. We'd get to Perkins', and Greg would let us in with a key that was hidden in a place that was (ahem) not exactly hard to reach. We'd go in and walk between the flats of carnations. It smelled wonderful. We walked and talked and fell in love in that damp, fragrant jungle.
We hadn't started dating until March, so there were no Valentine carnations for me that year, but on St. Patrick's Day, he gave me a white carnation that had been "tipped" in green.
Another time, when I had been grounded from seeing him for a week, he stopped the delivery van near where I was walking to work, jumped out and, without saying a word, handed me a white carnation and drove off. (Don't tell Mom.)
And when I had to go to Muskegon for a week for the Miss Michigan pageant, he came to my house early in the morning and handed me three yellow carnations wrapped in wet tissue and aluminum foil. I carried those flowers with me all day. They were as exhausted as I was by the time I was escorted to my "home" for the next few nights. I cried when I saw what I had put them through. But a night in a glass of water worked miracles. I awoke in a strange bed in a strange house in a strange town, but my beautiful flowers were the first thing I saw, and I knew everything was going to be all right.
The gift I received today from our daughter reminded me of how much I love carnations.
