A Military Family Blog

It was my birthday yesterday two days ago (happy 37 to me!) and I was so touched when I discovered this bouquet delivered to my doorstep.Not from my husband, though flowers are his stand-by. But from a friend I haven't seen in over three years who took me completely by surprise. I met Martha when we lived in Las Vegas. She and her family left that city shortly after we did and moved to Arizona, and in the midst of all the transitions we have both gone through since we both lived in Vegas we have only managed to keep in touch sporadically. But, girlfriends, this is proof of how a simple gesture can mean so much, no matter how long it's been.

Martha is one of those people I could meet up with tomorrow and talk like it was just yesterday that we last saw each other. I have collected a few of those over the years, and I hope to collect even more. They can join me in my heavenly neighborhood. The more the merrier.

The timing was divine. I had just gotten home from an appointment with Sean-Peter where he had finally been officially recognized as having verbal apraxia. Even though it confirmed what I knew to be true, I was realizing a little part of me was hoping to be told I was wrong. These flowers brought me so much brightness, bringing me out of my own little world and back out to this great, big, brilliant one that we all share, where a little guy having a speech disorder, really, is not the end. But I'll write more about that another time.

Olivia hardly believes us when we tell her it's Spring, but these fresh flowers brightening up our space seemed to her proof that it really is here, no matter the temperature outside. She has held on to this hope of Spring for so long, anticipating the flowers that will bloom where she plants them. She was reluctant to believe me when I explained to her that these flowers will not thrive if she transplants them into dirt, no matter how much attention she showers on them. We discussed the meaning of a "floral arrangement".

And she took it to heart, as I discovered when, throughout the day, flower by flower, my birthday arrangement transitioned to Olivia's.

She started out slowly. But surely, by the end of the afternoon, my arrangement was looking rather decimated. And hers was looking, well, rather good?

I mean, really. For a five-year-old, don't you think?

She took her arrangement up to her room, where of course they were eventually knocked over and the water spilled onto the carpet. She picked them up and readily rearranged them, but I think she forgot to replenish the water, now that I'm sitting here thinking about it. I suppose we'll need to review some of the finer nuances of a "floral arrangement".

In the meantime, John came through with his own birthday brightness, and I tidied up what I had left from the other.

After John got home, Olivia lavishly bestowed him with a flower from her arrangement, "This is for you, daddy!" with nary a word about its origin or how she acquired it. When I asked her if she wanted some of the flowers from the ones that daddy brought home, she stated, like it was so obvious, "No, I have my own."

And she does, as do I.

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I originally posted this last night (which means that, yes, I have been 37 for two days now)(and, yes, I also happen to share my birthday with that cutie-patootie Jason Castro on American Idol who is so adorable I just want someone to make him into a bobblehead so I can attach him to my dashboard), and almost immediately someone linked a trojan virus to it in the form of a comment. Besides all the things that I'd like to say about people who HAVE NO LIFE and do these kinds of things for their own demented pleasure, suffice it to say I have finally succumbed and implemented some security measures on the comment form.

Can anyone tell me how you delete a comment on your own blog that someone else posted? I just deleted the whole dang post; luckily I had the sense to copy it first. Because, really, on this dreary, dreary, rainy day, computer viruses and all, I needed to be reminded to literally stop and enjoy the flowers. Which is, of course, what will eventually follow this downpour. They always do.