Valentine's Day

Tomorrow is 2/14/11, in other words, Valentine's Day. 

This holiday always brings back memories of my late mother-in-law.  It was during this holiday that she started teaching me how to arrange flowers.  I vividly recall working and working until the wee hours of the morning the night before V-day and getting what many call "punch drunk".  Everything was FUNNY and we even laughed about how when we took a quick nap and came back to work we might be MORTIFIED at all the arrangements we had just done and have to redo them.  It was an exhausting and good night.

That started the journey of her training me.  She taught me to make wreaths, funeral baskets, center pieces .... you name it, she taught it.  She kept saying "yes, you can do that ...it isn't hard.".   Well, it wasn't for HER because honestly, she was a NATURAL.  I'd stand there looking at a big blank piece of thick styrofoam and say "ummm, really? I'm supposed to make a guitar out of that???"   She'd quickly inform me that yes, I was and yes  COULD.  That it was EASY. 

HA.  Easy?  For her maybe.  She was a natural.  It was a little harder for me but she was right, I COULD do it and I did.  :-)   I learned to make guitars, shrimp boats and even made an Earnhardt 3.  Like her, I LOVED making personalized funeral pieces because she taught me that these special pieces brought a tiny piece of joy to those grieving.  It made the emotional work so much easier to bear,

We spent a lot of days in that shop, with her teaching me and encouraging me, starting from that Valentine's Day forward.  The plan was for me to continue to work with her for couple of years and then buy the shop from her so she could retire and spend more time with her husband.   A few months later she found out she was sick and we had to fast forward the plan a little.

My first Valentine's Day she was too sick to help me --- and it was insanely busy.  I wired so many roses my fingers bled.   It was awesome, crazy, exhilarting and exhausting.  But I missed her.  It never felt right without her there with me.  That first Valenetine's Day week, her sister, battling cancer just as she was .... passed a way and I made my first, but not last, casket spray for a family member. 

So every year, this time of year .... the memories of her teaching me, her gentle smile, encouraging words and teasing sense of humor all come rushing back into my mind and heart.

Bittersweet.   Memories are very, very bittersweet.