a sad story...

I was at work yesterday. Pretty unusual for me to be on the schedule on a Monday. But there I was, due to my co-worker in the floral dept. taking some vacation time. It was right about time for me to leave for the day, and one of the produce guys said I needed to go talk to a customer. So I went up and introduced myself, asking how I could help?

She said she was looking for someone who could help her 'with the flower thing you put on a casket'. She was a young mom, with three small, but active/industrious kids in tow. As I was filling complimentary balloons, hoping to distract the kids, the mom was telling me that her niece, who was nineteen days old, had died and she was trying to order flowers to go on the casket for the funeral this weekend. Apparently, something I had never thought about: anytime a baby, small child dies from unknown causes, there is an autopsy. I assume the state requires it. So after the baby died, they went to the hospital and ended up having to leave the infant there. Awful. And cannot proceed with final rites until the autopsy is completed and the body is released. Awful-er. They are trying to plan the funeral for Saturday, but don't know if that is possible, because they have to wait for the cororner to let them have their baby back. Waiting. Awful-est.

I talked to my co-worker, who gave me the best price I could make her for a small fresh flower blanket. Which was 'way less than what another shop had quoted. So she said she would take it. I went to the funeral home today to find out about the size of an infant's casket. And discover the little fern and flower blanket to go on top only needs to be about twenty four inches long.

I was thinking about how I could help: suspecting the family will be struggling financially as well as emotionally after being overwhelmed by this unexpected turn of events. Wondering what I could do to bless these heartbroken people; decided to figure out how to give the flowers to the family. The plan: recruit some friends to help me pay for the flowers. If I could get eight people to put in ten dollars each, I could tell the aunt when she comes on Friday to pick up the arrangement , 'it has been paid'.  I wrote a note to the community group to ask if they would like to help. Hopefully enough folks will come through that I can tell Jennifer when I see her on Friday, that she will not be paying for the little baby-sized flower blanket out of her pocket.