The Power of Flowers: A Story by Anni Welborne
Last week I came across the following post in a Flower Farmer Facebook group that I’m active in and was so touched that I asked the author, Anni Welborne, if I could share it. She was kind enough to allow me to publish her story here with you all today. Enjoy :)
“I hang out here [on this Flower Farmer Facebook group] more as a wannabe than anything else, just listening and learning, trying to decide if this is for me. This is kind of long, so please excuse the length. But I want to tell you what happened today and encourage you in your profession.
Right now, my husband is in the hospital, and I’m at home recovering from bronchitis and no voice. Our daughters were going to visit him Thursday afternoon, so I ran outside and quickly clipped some peonies, irises, barely open wisteria, hosta leaves, and some roses from our climbing rose, tossed them all in a vase, and away my daughters went. The vase was way too crowded, but it was the biggest vase I had. No flower conditioner, just water with a few ice cubes. Stem length was haphazard, and so much for design elements. I did not even take a picture, but thankfully, my daughter did.
As my daughters carried this through the hospital, everyone ooohed and aaahhed. Of course, he’s on the complete opposite side of the hospital from the entrance, so *everyone* got to see it. People were stunned that these came from our front yard and that I assembled the bouquet. (“Assembled “ is perhaps an overstatement. “Crammed quickly, sort of keeping an eye on balance” is more accurate.) As they walked down the hall on his floor, each nurse commented how gorgeous, how delicious they smelled, lucky person, etc.
These flowers made their daddy cry. He’s in end-stage kidney failure, awaiting a kidney transplant. The past month, his lungs have been filling up with fluid, a side complication of kidney failure. Kidneys produce the hormone that prompts the bone marrow to produce red blood cells. He takes an artificial version of this hormone, but he still does not produce enough red blood cells, so his hemoglobin is chronically low. This week it dropped dangerously low. Normal for men is about 13-17. His was 7 (8 is life-threatening). This in turn affected his oxygen levels (in the 70s instead of 90s), along with the excess fluids on his lungs. He’s a mess, but after a week in the hospital, he’s going to make it. Thank God!
He said the flowers gave him such hope. They filled the room with a sweet, gentle aroma that gave him such peace, he said. They were the only colorful thing in the bland room. All his nurses came in, greeted him, then went to breathe in the bouquet.
This is powerful medicine!
I know you all make bouquets for many happy occasions that enhance the joy already existent. But these flowers were given out of my desperation to see my husband (haven’t seen him since Monday, hardly talked because I’ve been sick.) I was desperate to make both of us feel better, and flowers were the only physical tool I had.
I don’t know yet if flower farming is for me. If it is, I will probably stick to perennials because I just don’t have the physical strength to deal with thousands of flowers, planting, succession sowing, harvesting, etc. But if I only grow enough to be able to make bouquets like this a few times a year, my soul will be happy.
How do your hearts contain the joy? How do you cope with the desperate soul hunger that some recipients have? Maybe I am just very attuned to it right now because my own soul is starving for beauty and life, given my husband’s declining health. I am convinced I want to grow flowers. To what extent yet, I don’t know what’s possible.
Thank you for reading this far and for teaching me all you have thus far. Flower farming is a super-power.
Update: My beloved husband is home now! We left the flowers at the nurses’ station much to their giddy delight, after some quick dead heading and rearranging. Then as we pulled into the driveway at home, my husband saw my pink peony bush, probably 6’ diameter, heavy laden with gorgeous blooms, and let out a big sigh of relief to be home.”
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Anni Welborne lives on the wind-swept prairie of west-central Indiana with her husband of 30 years and their two daughters, one of whom has significant disabilities. Right now, Mariposa Meadow is just a six-acre hay field consisting of a dream, a small greenhouse about ¼ full of native wildflowers and a few lavender plants along with a few irises and peonies dotting the property. But Anni has grand plans to transform the entire meadow to aid her in educating people about pollinator conservation and native wildflowers as well as the simple joys and restorative powers of old-fashioned flowers. She hopes visitors will breathe a sigh of relief as they walk onto the property and feel delight and love when they leave. Anni’s husband is in end-stage kidney failure and is awaiting a kidney transplant. Please consider donating blood any time and organ donation when possible. Over 100,000 people are waiting for hope. You can find Anni on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092883627654
