Sympathy Flowers

Sympathy Flowers
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go
By Casey McMullin

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
~Luther Burbank

The first morning after the fog of grief rolled in, my friends dropped by and surprised me, bringing gifts to my door. They brought me candy, hot-chocolate mix, a card, and, most curiously, a gift box filled with white flowers.

I didn't know what to make of it all at first, other than offering a distant thank-you for stopping by. It was a forty-minute drive for a two-minute conversation, with me standing awkwardly on the front step in ugly, loose sweatpants and a white button-up. I had been staring blankly at my computer screen for hours, trying to write something vaguely coherent for my senior capstone paper without much success. When they asked me how I was, I made some half-hearted, self-deprecating joke about my outfit, something about the shirt feeling put-together but tight and the pants feeling depressing but comfortable. (Keep reading)