Flowers from Rex

What is with the flowers right now?

Rex never sent me flowers. We couldn't afford it and had a mutual agreement that that was pretty low on our list of priorities.

He did buy me flowers, once. He bought long-stemmed red red roses from his nephew. (The nephew needed money and didn't want to  borrow.)


The roses were frozen. They (or it. I don't remember now how many. I think three.) were beautiful, they smelled good. Long stemmed.
But frozen. When I used a vase, the weight of the frozen bloom broke the stem. The outer petals turned black and flaked off while the center remained hard as an ice cube.
But it smelled good, all nice and rose-y.

I don't remember now how I acted at the time. I fussed a bit over the being frozen part, but I think -- I hope -- I went on and enjoyed them, the thought and the flowers. Because I did enjoy them. I do  wish I could remember expressing that, because I don't think I did. I may have even made a little joke about it every now and then. Good natured, of course.


Now, in the last few weeks, I have been gifted twice, inexplicitly, with flowers.

First, there was the yellow rosebud, coming to life on a brown cane in winter weather.

That bud is still there, hanging teardrop shaped, still a bud, still yellow, even though temperatures have dropped into the teens for the last few nights.

(And I am getting goosebumps. A frozen rose? Seems I might know something about that after all.)

Two days ago, I went out to my car.
On the ground, just below the front bumper, right outside the door, was a large spray of (dead) flowers. Something multi-petalled, like a hydrangea. No particular meaning to us connected with the hydrangea, although they had come up in a conversation with my sisters.
The petals are white and browned, and are crisp like autumn leaves.

I said to Tracy,"Look, is your daddy is sending me dead flowers?"
She said, "yes maybe."
We both laughed, and I took pictures of the flowers, one on the ground and one on the hood of the car.

In the pictures I took that day, the flowers look (dare I say it?) a  rosy pink color. Easily understood in the on the car shot, since the car is a  burgundy color. Not so easy to understand in the on-ground photo.

It just seemed so odd, I thought.

Because Rex never sent me flowers.
We couldn't afford it, and it was low on our list of priorities.