I Bought My Friend Some Flowers on a Whim That Ended Up Getting Them Through the Pandemic

Project 365, Day 144/365

Routines are funny. As I sit here on Saturday night, with an empty head, unsure of what to write, I wonder if it’s partly because I’ve trained myself to sit and collect recipes and then put together a Sunday post around that for nearly six months. And today…I’m not doing that. As I went about my day, I’d go inside my brain and ask myself “What do I have to say today? What I’m I going to write?” This is a pretty normal occurrence for me. A healthy amount of my daily thoughts, percentage-wise, are thinking about what to write.

If you aren’t aware, I don’t plan my posts. I sit down every day and decide right then and there what I’m going to say. I have a few “regulars” but I don’t pre-write them or really think too much about them until the time comes to put fingers to keyboard.

I was half prepared to drop in to say a quick hello, apologize that I had nothing to contribute for the day, then bow out. But then I remembered a story a friend—let’s call them Morgan—told me this week, as we caught up on the phone after a year of not being in touch. I recalled it today on a drive with Charles. I tend to get very think-y on car drives.

“You know how I talked to Morgan on Wednesday? I forgot to tell you something they told me,” I said to Charles, who nodded in acknowledgment, leaving the door open for me to keep talking, to tell him the story.

Morgan is someone I met at a previous job…how else do adults make friends anyway? They were someone I instantly connected with. Literally, from day one, I knew they were my person, and I gotta say, I quickly realized I was theirs. Some friendships are like a long, slow kindling, while others are an instantaneous spark.

We didn’t work with each other long in the grand scheme of things, but looking back, it felt like we lived a lifetime together in those few short months. When their time came to move along, we vowed to keep in touch, but it wouldn’t be for several months or so that I’d see them again.

I was about two or three weeks into a new job myself, floating along on a cloud of lightness and hope and that genuine “everything is SO great!” feeling that comes along with the freshness of a clean slate. I remember walking into their house, and them saying almost instantly “you’re beaming!” We had been in the trenches together, used to seeing one another downtrodden, stressed, dusted with the dirt of workplace warfare. But by then, I was shiny and polished and new again, and Morgan could tell.

On my way over, I decided to take a quick detour to the market as my mom taught me never to show up to someone’s home empty-handed. I knew how much Morgan loved flowers, so I scooped up a pretty yet simple peony bouquet and some fancy chocolates for us to enjoy together, not thinking much of my gesture. Just a little something, you know?

I’d come to learn as we sat down to dinner that they were going through a lot at the time. A whirlwind love story gone to crap. It was very fresh, as in…that week fresh. Crisp. I sat, enthralled, listening to every detail.

Two months later, the world shut down, and Morgan and I connected here and there over the phone but we both did what many of us did at the time: retreated into ourselves, or rather our sofas. By the time we got on the phone this past week, we quickly took count that it had been just short of a year since the last time we were voice-to-voice. There was so much to say. We chatted and chatted. Catching each other up on life’s happenings…not that there was much, both of us mostly having spent all of 2020 and 2021 to date behind closed doors. Toward the end of our call, Morgan decided to share something with me.

“Remember that dinner we had and those flowers you brought me?” they asked.

“Yeah, of course. I knew how much you loved peonies!” I wasn’t sure where this was going, maybe just a little reminiscing on more human-feeling times.

“Well, I saved one of the petals and let it dry in this beautiful bowl I have in my living room. Every time I looked down into that bowl and at that petal, I thought of you, and how you cared for me that day. During the pandemic, when I was alone and in a dark place, that little petal reminded me that I was loved. That I was not alone. I thought about you more times than you know. Your small gesture of bringing me flowers got me through some tough times this last year. I just wanted you to know that.”

I was left speechless. Touched. I do love Morgan, and as long as we’re friends, Morgan wouldn’t be alone, but I had no idea. I was so lucky to spend all those months inside with Charles, having very little sense of how impossibly difficult it would have been by myself. That’s one of those things that you say “ugh, I can’t even imagine” to, all nonchalantly, or maybe not nonchalantly but at least just lacking any sort of true empathy.

It took me all of 15 minutes to stop, pop into the store, grab some flowers on a whim. But those same flowers, or rather their gesture, lasted for 15 months. I’d have bought a field of flowers had I known what was coming for us all.

Morgan, if you’re reading, I hope you don’t mind me telling that story (let this sentence stand as proof that if you’re my friend, expect to be written about). I know you’re private, but if this story encouraged anyone here to extend a small gesture to someone else, and it could have a similar impact, I think we’d all be in a better place in this world.

Today, and this upcoming week, reach out to a friend, a loved one. Say hi, tell them you care for them, send them a surprise treat, a note, an email. You truly never know what impact it could have.

See you tomorrow, FOAS!