It was a good year for flowers.
My parents’ flower farm was small petunias compared to the big players in the game, but it provided a decent living for them and me and my brothers. We didn’t have the massive greenhouses that the bigger growers have. Our business depended on the weather, and that year the flower gods smiled upon us. Rain, just enough, not too much, broken by long stretches of sunshine. Perfect flower-growing weather.
We mainly sold locally. We couldn’t compete with the larger wholesalers on price but our customers were loyal. Henderson and Sons bought from us, and the local florists. The chain grocery stores had their own suppliers, but the mom-and-pops were good.
Lilies were big that year, of course, but the others sold well, too, because lilies alone can be depressing. Crème roses, white carnations, and white mums were good sellers, all that white offset by blue delphinium or lavender larkspur, asters, or statice. People shied away from the memorial services, but they splurged on flowers to make up for their absence.
We hadn’t seen a year like it before. We sold all we could grow.
When Henderson Sr. died of the disease, his sons carried on the business as long as they could. They were quickly overwhelmed, and there were those months when bodies were being stored in refrigerated trucks until they could be interred. Everything closed down. People kept buying flowers, though, even as budgets got tight. Beautiful flowers make you feel better. They give people hope for the future, here or in the hereafter, those who believe in such things.
Mom got the disease first. She died in the hospital, on a respirator. Dad seemed to lose interest in everything after that, everything except the farm. He said he owed it to Mom to keep the business going, even though flowers were more her passion than his. He did his best until the disease took him, too, and my younger brother.
My remaining brother and I were too young to live on our own. We were shipped off to Illinois to stay with an aunt. By then, it was the end of the growing season and the relatives shut the farm down. It’s never reopened.
It was a terrible year for a lot of people, my own family included. A terrible year.
But it was a good year for flowers.
Jan Strnad has written for the entertainment industry and has four novels and one book of short stories currently available. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Like what we do? Be a Patreon supporter.