Why Do We Send Flowers?

Why do we send flowers? To make up for what is intangible? Those feelings we can’t hold in our hands and present as a gift to our loved ones? And why is it that the placeholders we choose — the dozen red roses, the fragrant white lilies, the long-stemmed French tulips — are so fleeting? Hold on to them for too long and you end up with a mess of petals, pollen and foul-smelling water.

After my boyfriend’s death, I went about trying to find closure. I wrote letters and set them on fire. I went to a therapist, then another. I went to yoga and tried meditation. I moved to Colorado, then Oregon. I went so many places and carried him along with me to each of them. I have done so much holding.

There’s a picture I took of him just days before I left for college, two months before he died. It was the summer of chips and guacamole dinners we shared sitting on the living-room floor. He’s standing in the kitchen wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, one perfect half of an avocado cradled in his hand. His face is turned away, hidden from the camera, but I like to think he’s smiling.

I remember the song we were listening to, the chatter of frogs through the screen door, my bare feet on wood. Precious moments made all the more precious by the fact that they have already come and gone. Now I measure months by what’s in season: sunflowers in July, dahlias in August, rosehips and maple in October, pine in December, hyacinth in March, crowd-pleasing peonies in May.

A favorite of mine is tulip magnolia, the way the buds erupt into blooms and the blooms into a litter of color on lawns, all in a matter of weeks while it’s snowing cherry blossoms. How startlingly beautiful impermanence can be.