cleaning roses

It is Valentine’s Eve at my mom’s flower shop. I enter through the rear entrance and head straight to the cramped, grimly lit back office to drop off my backpack.

My dad—a typically easygoing, happy-go-lucky guy—is absorbed in his work, sipping black coffee while sternly mapping out flower delivery routes at his desk. Between him and the computer screen lies a thin paper plate balanced precariously atop a heap of papers. Its edges curl to one side, darkened slightly by the dried remnants of some crystallized semiliquid — a vestige of cream cheese, perhaps, as hinted by the half-eaten everything bagel slumped on the plate like some crumbling, neglected tombstone. It must have been hours since he last took a bite.

As I set my bag down, he doesn’t say a word to me, let alone look up from the screen to acknowledge my arrival —his own way of saying It’s about time you came to help. It’s almost noon, and we’re swamped with work. I had a feeling you’d be late, and yet somehow, I’m still disappointed. I’ll forgive you in a bit, but right now, I’m upset. I’m fine here, so go help your mom before I say something I’ll regret.

A familiar feeling. I feel awful, but I try not to dwell on it too much. I have a terrible habit of being late— especially when it comes to family matters. Something to journal about later, I think to myself.

I step out of the office and into the clamorous workspace area. The assisting florists are frantically moving about, scrounging around for flowers now scattered throughout the shop. Further down, I watch as my younger sister helps enthused boyfriends and husbands pick out flowers for their significant others, thinking There’s something so tender about the act of picking out a gift for a loved one. This scene continued to trigger within me a flurry of thoughts: How sweet it is that they know what types of flowers and colors to get… If only their significant others could see what I’m seeing, too. The way their eyes light up, the palpable excitement that takes over once they see the final arrangement, knowing well how happy their significant other will be to receive them. If I could just capture these moments and find some way to share them with their respective partners, maybe we could bring the divorce rate down a bit…

My rambling daydreams get cut short when my mom calls my name from the flower cooler. She needs help cleaning roses, she says. They just arrived from the wholesaler this morning. I go in to help bring them out.

Set before me now are two paint buckets packed to the brim with fresh pink and red roses. I take a seat at the nearest workbench, grab a rose cleaning tool, and get to work. 

Cleaning roses is straightforward: remove the thorns and pluck out any blemished petals. “These blemishes are a sign that the rose might be rotten, dead— got it?” my mom instructs.

15 minutes pass. I think I’m doing a fair job of discerning living roses from dying ones. My mom comes over to my station to check on my progress. As she sifts through my “clean” rose pile, she smiles softly and lets out a laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that comes just before she takes over—gentle, but firm. In that moment, I’m five again, watching her show me, once more, how it’s supposed to be done.

She picks up one of the roses and begins plucking petals off in quick succession until it starts to look unrecognizable, resembling a rosebud. My heart drops a bit with each stroke; to me, the rose she singled out was totally fine. Perhaps there were a few minor blemishes on some of the petals, but not enough to strip them away so ruthlessly. But before I get the chance to object, she does the same for several more roses, her movements mechanical, almost brutal. For the roses that she deems rotten, she twists off their heads. A dull and hollow crunch follows each break, leaving only the bare stem and inner core behind. Then, without hesitation, she tosses them into the trash.

But a rose is a rose, is it not? Does it have to be so picture-perfect? Is there no hope—no use—for a rose with blemishes? Do only unblemished roses get the chance to be made into something beautiful?

After she finishes and leaves, I resume my work, but quietly set aside the remaining blemished roses. I bunch them together and take them home. I place them in a vase, arrange them as best I can, and love them fully until they wither away.