Red Chrysanthemums
My mother was a florist and my father was only a man in love, a dangerous combination nonetheless. He wooed her with bouqets filled with pink, red and white camellias that were peppered with hibisucs and when my mother refused them he made her gentle promises through bouqets filled with white yarrows, zennas and honeysuckle. Weak was my mother for a man who could speak her language and so she removed the garland of yellow carnations from her door and opened it just a crack letting the warmth from her home seep onto the cold dimly lit streets. My father worked early mornings at the factory so from then on my mother would wake up to find a red chrysanthemum where my father once lay until one day as abruptly as it had started it stopped. I was around 8 at the time and had been studying flowers along side my mother, so i knew when the beautiful vase filled with dark crimson roses and marigolds arrived on our doorstep with a tag from the factory 3 days after my fathers disappearance, things would not be the same.