Flowers speak in silence, holding meanings that words can&rsquo;t quite touch. They&rsquo;re present at nearly every occasion, big or small &mdash; a &ldquo;just because&rdquo; on an ordinary day, a way to say &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; &ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; or simply, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here.&rdquo;
Each petal is a small burst of color, a piece of life that brings brightness to a room, a week, or a moment. They don&rsquo;t ask for attention &mdash; they simply exist. There is something calming in their quiet resilience, something sacred in how they bloom wherever they&rsquo;re planted.
And so, I loved flowers. I loved them the way I loved him, with a quiet reverence, as if some things are too precious to understand. They reminded me that some things are meant to bloom, even with all their messy beauty. They reminded me I could have softness, even when the world felt harsh. Beauty could sometimes just be that &mdash; a bit of wonder without reason.
But not now. Not anymore.&nbsp;
Today, I&rsquo;m looking at a room filled with them. They&rsquo;re lavish and tall and perfect and cold. They&rsquo;re everywhere, trying to outdo one another, yet none of them means a thing to me. They sit around him like strangers. All I can feel is their silence, how they mock what he was and what we were. The irony cuts deep. Flowers were how he rooted me, how he wrapped me in something soft. Now, they&rsquo;re the witnesses to the hardest thing I&rsquo;ll ever have to bear.
But I don&rsquo;t need flowers. I don&rsquo;t need anything that tries to soften this pain or distract from the emptiness where he should be. I don&rsquo;t want roses or lilies or condolences written in cards that all sound the same. Nothing could ever replace the warmth he brought to my life.
I need his laughter, erupting in the quietest hours as if it were ours alone. I need the weight of his hand in mine, his silent anchor that reassured me. I need the look that held a thousand unsaid words, his gaze that told me I was seen, known. I need the nights we spent wrapped in each other&rsquo;s presence, talking until dawn, unburdened and unguarded. I need the life we shared, the fragments only we could ever understand.
So, let the room be bare. Let it be anything but this.
In lieu of the flowers, send him back.