Thirty-three - Drowning in a Sea of Flowers

I’d never been to a flower show before and hadn’t known what to expect, but even as someone largely disinterested in blooms and blossoms, I found myself impressed by the spectacle laid out before me. The parkland area had been transformed into planter box garden beds of all shapes and sizes, paths meandering through them so that you could experience the wash of colours from every angle. I strolled from Alstroemeria to Bouvardia, from Carnation to Dahlia, on down past Larkspur, Lily, Lotus and Rose, drinking in the visual feast even as I inhaled the rich perfumed aroma fragrantly wafting from the smiling flower faces that nodded in the breeze.

As I neared a particularly beautiful display, I noticed a man and a woman, hand in hand, approaching it ahead of me. They stopped and admired the flower bed for a moment or two, then the man motioned for the woman to stand in front of it, removing a camera from the pack he carried and indicating that he would take her picture. She stood facing him, her back to the flowers, a broad smile wide across her face. Then something changed. Her lips were still frozen in the shape of a smile but her eyes betrayed a sadness rising up within her. Tears brimmed and the smiling visage cracked, her expression falling into sorrow so quickly and deeply that I was shocked. The man was unsurprised however. He dropped his pack, his camera, all forgotten at his feet and ran forward to clasp her in a tight embrace. Then they were both crying, clinging to each other like swimmers in deep, deep water, feeling the dangerous undercurrents plucking at them from below.

Suddenly feeling that I was intruding, I turned away, choosing a different path, leaving them to their shared grief and shared comfort. I’ll never know what burden they carried, but I understand the sorrow, understand the small triggers that sometimes unleash a rushing torrent of emotions from within. I’ll always remember the image of that couple, their ocean of tears falling amidst the sea of flowers.