At the end of all the ”faffing” and making sure all the bouquets had enough flowers, I had the thought that it’s good, let’s just go. But I made myself carry on to see each of the 80 bouquets in situ. When I was in the final row, I saw a whole elastic band on a leaf left over from bringing them in buckets. Each unique bouquet I made in my garden and held them together with an elastic band. Then I found part of a cut rubber band stuck to the glass like a little translucent worm. Oh, I’m so glad that I saw that I thought to myself.
On one of the final bouquets, I saw something that didn’t make sense. What was that on the upper leaf – that blue piece of crumpled up string – a certain blue string that I have only used once. I don’t know where I originally got it – it’s synthetic and is bright in its solid vibrant colour. It was tied in a bow around a single dried piece of lavender. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m very grateful not to have missed that. It’s funny that the person who was placing it didn’t notice it – there aren’t that many blooms and leaves. They are purposely airy arrangements in part because of the vases that the client provides, and to fill an otherwise vacant room with life and beauty, and as the client says: pretty.
I told my friend who was there what had just happened.
I took it out of my pocket and showed her.
She wasn’t at Ilse’s funeral where I had made one for each of the 50 people in the outside Covid ceremony. If they wanted, they could take the two pieces of lavender (I grew in my garden) tied up in a bow like the way you would tie a piece of string around your finger to remember something or in this case, someone. They were invited to place one on her coffin and the other with the string to keep to remind them of Ilse.
We both burst into tears and hugged. She said she had goosebumps. We both said to one another: “Weird!” at the same time.
The one lavender stem and the string tied in a bow were perched on a wreath hung on the wall above where some of the flower bouquets were sitting in buckets in my studio, waiting for their ride in a truck to the party.
The weird part, for me, is that I saw it. That I was not going to walk the whole room. That I would never have seen it , but something made me carry on until the end. Until I had inspected every last bouquet for this gathering of 825 people.
Before we left the conference centre, with the lavender back in my pocket, I went to the washroom. We were planning on picking up sandwiches on our way home, my sweetheart and I.
Standing in the doorway to take one last look at the expanse of this room and to take a picture of the lavender and the string, I reached into my pocket. The string was around the stock of the lavender, but no lavender head. A few pieces had come off in my pocket, providing the strong scent, I retraced my steps using my phone’s flashlight. I couldn’t find the lavender!
I took this picture anyway.
She is always with me.
In mysterious ways and in unexpected places.
I’m not thinking that there’s a sign or even that she was there in that room, only that there is a beautiful, unexplainable way in which through what I would think of as randomness- in its lack of intention or thought – I carry her.
She is alongside me in my current life. A life she didn’t get to know.
A life where I miss her. In a more distant way now. Until moments like this that touch me deep inside.
I don’t have words to explain it.
I only have the mirror of my childhood friend to look into the eyes of and say..…
Weird.
I wish you peace on your path today,
Lise-Lotte