My friend, Charlie.

Charlie. I made a friend that day.

I was on my way home from visiting a place that I hadn’t returned to in over 30 years. A place that marked a before and an after for me. One of a few of those kinds of experiences in my life. Very clear “befores” and very clear “afters”.

I had been stopping at this particular little farm stand on the side of an old country road for some time now. I would stop there to buy myself the fresh-cut flowers they offered every chance I got. It’s an honor system. Grab your bouquet & put your money in the jar. But this day was different. I needed to stop this particular day to grab flowers for the benefit dinner the following day, but the flowers were all gone. Ugh! I was in a hurry. I had a whole list of things I needed to get done and this was supposed to be a quick stop. I needed these flowers though, so across the road I go, past the chickens, up on the porch, and I knocked on the door. Twice. And the second time I knocked, somebody knocked back. Oops! Did I overstep? Nope. Not according to Charlie. Margaret wasn’t home to help me, but he’d be happy to take me out into the field & cut me what I needed. Charlie said Margaret is a nurse. At West Penn Hospital. At the Cancer Institute. And has been for 20 years. She was there when I was there. That whole time. The eight months that I spent receiving my treatments. All this time I never knew I was buying flowers from a woman who I’m certain had a hand in caring for me when I was most sick.

Out of the many things we talked about, he reminded me of two things specifically as we walked through that field of flowers. As far as he knew, he was teaching me about a flower’s best chance at growth. He explained why it’s necessary to “deadhead” a flower. It serves two purposes that I can recall from our conversation. It allows for new growth on that same plant, but it also allows for new growth when the dead bloom hits the ground and goes to seed.

I left with more than enough that day. And I don’t just mean the flowers. Charlie would catch me wiping away tears more than once as we walked and talked, as hard as I tried to hide it. He asked if I was okay and I assured him that I was. I explained that they were happy tears. It was just all so much. Coming from where I just came from that morning and the significance that visit held, to end up here in this field of flowers with this gentle old man who God was using to send me a message when all I wanted to do is grab flowers for this dinner that I was running out of time preparing for. Flowers from a field of flowers planted by a woman who had a hand in saving my life and tended to by a husband who would remind me why I was still here and reveal to me that my growth resembled that of a flower. If Charlie could only know what his words and his kindness and his time meant.

P.S. Charlie asked if I was “religiously” inclined. I said, “Religious, no. But I have an intimate relationship with my Father & Jesus saved my life”. When he was cutting the gladiolus for me, he said white gladiolus had special meaning. I told him I would research it when I got home. I did what I said I would. And in my very quick internet search, I found that white gladiolus symbolizes purity & spirituality. There was ONE white gladiolus left in the field.

That morning I went back to a place where I will begin to rewrite that part of my story. I told you. This is bigger than me.