Flowers At A Funeral

What’s the point? No seriously, Why waste time and money? 

Sure, flowers at a funeral were an important countermeasure to the horrid smell of decaying flesh while family and friends traveled days to visit the body of a loved one. 

A viewing in 80-degree heat damages the olfaction senses something fierce as grandma or grandpa rots on a linen-covered table in the sitting room. The sweet smell of roses did wonders to mask the scent. 

That was centuries ago. What’s the point now? We’ve got air conditioning. We can keep Nana and Papa at a cool 65 and have them 6 feet deep before you smell your own sweat. 

Flowers though. Is it even necessary? 

If you answer that it’s customary, it’s not. It makes no sense in the 21st century. 

But it’s symbolism.  So is half the color palette, but it’s not determining life choices anymore. 

Sure death is tragic, and freshly cut flowers with a 24-hour shelf might make you forget that someone you love is dead, but like the body, you will be throwing those bouquets away before the first worm starts digesting grandma.

And though Granny is passed on to the great unknown, I bet bottom dollar she would have rather had the 15-minute phone conversation you had with the florist than a vase full of pretty petals. 

That’s the thing with flowers at a funeral. It just doesn’t make sense to me. How is it even relevant anymore? 

Death. That has been the unspoken conversation I have been having with a few people. No one wants to say it, but it’s inevitable, which puts preparations into perspective. 

Which leads to understanding and appreciating time. Sadly, it’s all picked and plucked to be presented at the time of someone’s death. 

And I can say for certain, that anyone given the chance would want the time of connection than a second-thought bouquet to show some respect. 

I am getting too wordy. 

I can’t help but think that all the time and wasted energy to arrange a floral could have been better spent calling Grandma, or Grandpa. Your loved one could care less that they had a good baby’s breath spray on their casket. 

The phone calls, the lost connections being fixed, and a simple I love you would have made the difference. Petals on display seem like a Hail Mary attempt at showing that you care when you could do it when there was still time.  

This made me reflect on my life, and the lives around me. 

Heaven forbid anything happens to me, or my loved ones, but if you think a $20 arrangement compensates for lost opportunities, I prefer you say a silent prayer and be on your way. 

Don’t waste the energy. I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it. If you couldn’t find a moment in your day to reach out, then what’s the point when I am rotting on the inside? 

Or anyone for that matter. 

Simple gestures like this make no sense to me. If you couldn’t show me love, kindness, and compassion when I still breathed, 1-800-flowers isn’t cutting it. 

Save your money and your time. Chances are we were never that close. I’d respect yeah more if you just as easily forgot about me, cause I wouldn’t be thinking about you. 

Save my family or anyone’s family, the hassle of finding the rube to unload a half-dead potted pothos with a sympathy card. The funeral director has a backroom full of discarded left behinds rotting in soil and ceramic pots, so they will politely decline.  

Instead, anyone dies and you are left wondering what respectable thing you could possibly do, be more active in someone’s life. 

Don’t wait for the day that you have to send a generic card with a poem about death attached to a cellophane bouquet. 

It’s safe to say when asked, right before the final curtain call in all our lives, what we would have wanted most, each one of us would say more time to be with the ones we love. 

Time to love. Time to love more. 

Sure, flowers and symbolism mean a few things. I get it. I don’t expect the funeral floral business to pivot. 

What I want to stress is, to spend more time with the people in your life now before it’s too late.

The emptiness you will feel as you talk to a stranger over the phone, or select a nice floral spray online, will haunt you. That wasted time could have been better spent telling Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, or Dad that you love them.   

Don’t waste it on empty gestures. It’s frivolous. 

Love the people in your life before it’s too late. Love hard. Love strong. Plant the flowers of relationships and watch them bloom. 

Picking a flower speeds up death quicker. The beauty of the flower, as in life, is watching it grow.