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Delivering a Mother’s Day message

The first Mother’s Day gift I remember giving my mom was a bouquet of flowers fashioned from colored tissue paper and pipe cleaners that we made in first grade.

I am fairly certain nearly as much messy glue went into it as love, and a handful of dandelions would have been prettier to display, yet Mom, of course, acted as thrilled as if it were a dozen roses because that’s what moms do.

The final Mother’s Day gift I gave my mom, 24 years ago – it is difficult to believe it has been that long – was a bouquet of real flowers. More importantly, I delivered them in person with a hug. She probably would have preferred a single rose and a bouquet of hugs.

These two reminisces bring to mind a story, perhaps apocryphal, I heard a while ago and seems fitting to share today on Mother’s Day eve.

It was the Friday before Mother’s Day and a successful businessman – let’s call him Harry – decided to order flowers for his mom. Usually he had his secretary or wife do this task, but for some reason he felt motivated to do it himself.

Ordering a bouquet online would have been almost as easy as asking his secretary to take care of it, but Harry believed in supporting local businesses so on his lunch break he walked to a florist shop a few blocks from his office.

The owner began to show Harry a variety of special arrangements, but Harry was in a hurry – he always seemed in a rush; in the business world time is money – so he simply ordered a dozen long-stemmed red roses to be delivered two days hence on his mom’s doorstep 200 miles away.

The premium prices for Mother’s Day flowers, and the surcharge for a Sunday delivery, didn’t make Harry blink. In fact, because he felt bad for being too busy to visit his mom he doubled his original order to two-dozen roses.

Harry wrote down his mom’s address, asked for an extra dozen roses to-go to take home to his wife, and paid with his platinum credit card.

Exiting the florist shop, Harry almost bowled over a young boy who asked: “Excuse me, sir, could you lend me two dollars?”

Harry’s instinct was to acerbically correct the boy and say, “Don’t you mean give you two dollars? You aren’t planning to pay me back.”

But the boy’s sincerity brought out a gentler side in Harry and instead he asked: “Why do you need two dollars?”

“Today’s my mom’s birthday and I want to buy her a beautiful flower, but I don’t quite have enough money,” the boy explained.

Harry suddenly found himself in no hurry, found himself becoming a softy, and while reaching for his wallet asked the boy where he lived.

The boy pointed up the street: “About five minutes that way.”

Harry now had a better idea than handing the boy a couple bucks. He plucked one of the roses from the bouquet for his wife – surely she would not even notice the difference between a dozen and 11 – and handed it to the boy.

“Give this beauty to your mom.”

“Wow! Thank you so much!” the boy said. “I’m going to take this to my mom right now!”

With that the boy got on his bicycle and began to ride off – in the opposite direction of where he had pointed his house was.

“Hey, son, I thought you lived that way,” Harry said.

“I do,” the boy replied. “But the cemetery is this way. My mom died last year.”

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said, his voice choking up. He handed the boy the rest of the bouquet and added: “Please put these on her grave.”

The boy took all the flowers and rode away while Harry turned around and went back into the florist shop.

“I need to cancel that out-of-town delivery I just ordered,” Harry said. “Instead, I need you to put together two dozen roses to-go as quickly as possible. I’ve decided to deliver them today personally.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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