Creating Beauty

The first flowers I remember giving to you happened early in our dating days. I was playing hockey on Sunday mornings in the Dorchester Men’s No Body Contact League. You even drove out to the arena on occasion to watch. Helmets did not require cages and as a result, an inadvertent stick struck me in the mouth. No issues with the teeth but my lips were cut and swelled to twice normal size. The next day I dropped off a pot of red tulips at your apartment with a note: “These are for the two lips you will be missing.” Corny. I know. It made you laugh and smile; and when you smile your eyes sparkle.

In our first year of marriage, we had little money with you in full time attendance at Western and me working for Jansen’s Greenhouses delivering plants for $6.25 an hour. Purchasing flowers was a luxury we could not afford, as you well know.  Instead, on my Saturday delivery route, I would drive by our little apartment to drop off a potted mum or spring bulbs or a mixed pot, depending on what I knew would go unnoticed missing from the truck. The flowers added to the simplicity of our life together on Victoria Street in London.

When we moved to Toronto, I knew how much you loved to receive flowers so I found ways to purchase them spontaneously if there was a sale, purposely on special occasions, sometimes just because, never on Valentine’s Day because that would be too prosaic. And each time, you were as thrilled as the first time, smiling, finding the perfect vase to display them.

It would be in our yards at home, particularly this one on Mill Road, where we co-created ever expanding gardens so we could enjoy flowers from spring to fall. Planting, nurturing, pruning, replacing, watering, caring, admiring. My favourite moments were those weekend sunny mornings, warm and inviting, when you and I would walk with a coffee in our hand to tour the estate. “Look at how the peonies have blossomed, and the buds on the hydrangeas. Oh! The rose is in bloom!” And you would stop to smell, close your eyes, soak in the fragrance, invite me to do the same. Inevitably a butterfly would visit, a cardinal or a robin would fly into the yard, and a neighbour would walk by to declare we had the most beautiful garden on the block. You thanked them graciously and smiled.

For 42 years you and I have been creating beauty in each other, together, in our home, with our families, for our children and soon our children’s children.

I hope you enjoy the flowers arriving this morning and they make you smile. Just a little something to say I love you.

Happy Anniversary Olga.