One Perfect Bloom

As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

—Colossians 3:12

When something bad happens, when something falls apart, always, always say something. Start with simple questions: How are you? What can I do?

In my experience, when things fall apart, you can never go wrong with flowers and food, even when someone insists that there’s nothing you can do. I’d never come out and ask you to bring me a meal, but in one difficult season, we ate my mother-in-law’s potato thyme soup and Jessie’s coconut milk ice cream and September’s chicken casserole for days on end, and we were thankful every time we opened the fridge and didn’t have to think, our hearts and minds so full and troubled.

Flowers are always a good idea: new life in a vase. During a season of great loss for us, friends sent a gardenia in a beautiful glazed celery-colored pot. My track record with keeping plants alive is awful, but I tried my best, and one morning, maybe two weeks later, I came around the corner and there it was: one perfect bloom. I almost cried, with relief that I hadn’t killed it yet, and also with gratitude. From thousands of miles away, these friends and their kindness reminded me that new life always follows death.