I had just moved to Linden when I fell in love again. My heart was swelling with the romance of escaping the city and retreating to a quaint town. Disbelief at really opening my own florist shop was still coursing through my veins on that bright spring day. Was this real life or was it all just a dream? The impeccably blue sky above me suggested something too idyllic to be true. I clutched a flower arrangement tighter in my hands. My business card almost crumpled in the process. I had rechecked the name on the ivy-green business card. I was actually running my own business. Marisol Perez. Florist of “Eternally Blooming.” How ironic that my last stop, and potentially my best customer, would be a funeral parlor. How surreal the letters of my name had looked on my business cards. I had dreamed of this for so long. Since childhood, I had gotten a Bachelor's degree studying business. I had run in the rat race of corporate for nine seemingly-long years. And now, here I was, twenty-nine, starting my life completely over. Throwing away everything I had so far achieved, my mother said. Well, there was no room for her storm clouds in today's sky. I brushed off the thought of my mother, and with it my self-doubt. I pushed forward, about to present old Mr. Gorham with a pretty bouquet. My goodwill froze in my chest when the old man's face appeared in the doorway. The hard, grim line of his mouth seemed chiseled out of stone. Dark, cold green eyes appraised me, coming to narrow on the bouquet I held. It was like I had knocked on the door to winter, and an icy chill prickled my flesh. “Good afternoon,” I said warmly, letting my eyes crinkle. I had noticed that crows feet were beginning to prick at the sides of my dark eyes. Would gray strands soon thread through my waist-length black hair? Well, I was almost thirty-five. I couldn't just give up smiling for the rest of my life. “I brought you some flowers.” The stoic man, probably in his early seventies, stared for a moment longer at the ridiculously bright orange blossoms in my grasp. I should have just brought lilies, and I should have offered my business card first. But I had intended on making a friend as well as a business connection. After all, if this went well, we would be seeing a lot of each other. Then, he burst out laughing. His grim mouth split in two. “Wait until the missus hears about this. And who are you, girl?” My anxiety loosened its grip, allowing me to breathe and for the conversation to become automatic. “Marisol Perez, sir. I'm the new florist in town.” His eyebrows, bushy and silver, shot up. He reached out a hand to accept the flowers. “These are a bit cheerful for a funeral parlor, don't ya think?” But I was confident. “Well, that's because they're for you, sir. Or your wife. I figure an undertaker doesn't get flowers for themselves very often.” “That's very thoughtful of you, girl. Why don't you come in for some cookies?” Mr. Gorham's wife was even more delightful. Immediately, she offered a tight hug with a kiss on the cheek. She was gleeful over the flowers, and her honest show of affection caught me by surprise. It felt strange, to be enveloped in a solid embrace. How could she have known I needed a hug so badly? It would be difficult to be a florist and to not be an optimist. After all, at the very root of the job is the responsibility to watch things bloom and grow. How would one manage that, while scoffing at all the troubles of life at the same time? How could anyone urge something to grow up, while smothering it in a frown? Well, certainly my mother had managed the latter. In fact, she had never really cared for flowers, either. What a waste of money, she had bemoaned, just to have them shrivel and die. I think, maybe, my mother is also a little allergic to life. Why wake up every day, and enjoy the sun, when it will just set and give way to night? Why eat a delicious meal, when you will be hungry again later? We differ, fundamentally, on our outlooks on this fickle thing called life. Perpetually, she is burned out by the monotony of living. I seem frivolous to her. Why not shout along to my favorite song on the way to work? Why not stop to sniff each beautiful flower? My life is a series of episodes of wasted time. I don't contribute very much to the purpose of life. My mother's “purpose of life” is very straightforward. Work very, very, arduously hard. Become “successful” in some “real” job. Keep the house very clean. Stay very thin. Get married. Have a baby. If you bring plants indoors, there will be dirt on the floor. And pets shed a lot of fur. And children break things. If you have a whole field of flowers in your front yard, there will occasionally be bees. At every turn, there's some mess, threatening the perfection of life. Through the disarray that has become my life, I have disappointed my mother irrevocably. But that was why I so desperately needed Mrs. Gorham's hug.