Saturday, May 1, 2010

Thoughts on Flowers and Other Things

My doorbell just rang a few minutes ago and Fed-X was there with a flower delivery.  For me.  That was a nice surprise.  I love flowers.  I love to have them in the garden, to smell them, to see them, their colors and form.  I especially love very fragrant flowers like old-fashioned roses and lilacs and phlox.

These flowers were accompanied by a very loving, lovely and thoughtful note from my significant other.  This is a man I wish I could have taken home to meet my mother.  He is not perfect, but he is a wonderful human being and the quintessential "nice guy."  He has his moments of being oblivious (his term), but he is a man of heart, of integrity, of intelligence, of patience and (best of all!) he loves me for who I am.

And yet, when the delivery came, I put it on the island in the kitchen and went about my business for a little while.  I didn't open the box for about 20 minutes.

Took me a couple of minutes of self-reflection to realize why.

It's because flowers -- like my friend, the rose -- still, at times, have a bit of a thorny memory to them.  One of the last several things my gay ex-spouse did in an attempt to mend our marriage was send me roses.  Another afternoon, he knocked on the door and handed me a single red rose.  I can tell you that both times, the flowers went straight to the garbage can -- and no, I didn't throw them away in front of him.  I was gracious, although not ebullient in the receiving, because there wasn't a sense of honesty in the giving.

Talk about way too little, too late.

On another note, I found it interesting today to learn that Christian artist Jennifer Knapp recently came out as a lesbian.  That took a lot of courage.  And it was in reading a related article about Knapp in Christianity Today that I learned that another Christian artist, Ray Boltz, recently came out, as well.  His wife, Carol, is another straight wife who has a blog, My Heart Goes Out.  This particularly touched me because my ex is musically inclined and for years was involved with or lead worship teams at the various churches we attended.

It's early Friday evening.  I'm about to pack it up and head off to the gym.  It's been cool, windy and sometimes rainy all day, which kind of suits my mood.  Good thing I have a beautiful bouquet of flowers in my living room to brighten things up.

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