Saying It with Flowers // The tradition continues by Hindy Kviat

By Rivky Lefkowitz

T

here would be nothing remarkable about my friend buying her mother flowers for her birthday, except for one thing. It wasn’t her mother’s birthday; it was her own. 

As her 50th birthday approached, a confetti of thoughts rained down on Chavie’s* brain. Why is this birthday about me? Isn’t it my mother I should be celebrating? She brought me into this world and cared for me. She brought meaning and richness to my life. She’s the one who deserves to be honored.

It soon became a tradition. Every Rosh Chodesh Iyar, the birthday girl would buy a beautiful bouquet of flowers and hand-deliver them to her mother with a heartwarming note. I was so taken when I heard this idea that I wanted to do the same thing. The only problem was that my mother was already in a better world, where I couldn’t send her flowers. I could only send her deliveries of zechusim from my good deeds. Nonetheless, I was delighted that my friend’s mother had merited arichus yamim and that she could continue to make this very beautiful gesture year after year. 

And then the idea of the flowers wilted and died. Mrs. Markowitz passed away, and the knock on the door on Rosh Chodesh Iyar was silenced. I didn’t remember to call Chavie until the day after her birthday. “It must have been so hard for you,” I said. “You must have missed your mother even more because you couldn’t give her flowers anymore.” 

I hoped that my reminder hadn’t caused another layer of grief for her. That’s why I was so delighted by what came next.

“I have an idea,” she said. “I’m going to continue the tradition—by giving my mother’s birthday flowers to someone else. That way, I’ll be able to perpetuate my mother’s memory, and it will be a zechus for her.” 

I endorsed the idea with gusto. We brainstormed for a while, but then we had to hang up before we identified the “perfect person.” 

A few days later, on Friday afternoon, my phone rang. Not one for chitchat on Erev Shabbos, Chavie got right to the point. 

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