Pandemic Parables: Flowers
July 31st 2020
There hasn’t been as many flowers as usual in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I only realized this recently when I saw a beautiful summer burst of color on a counter top on one of the wings of the third floor.
“They are gorgeous!” I said to unit secretary.
“Aren’t they just!” She responded. “A grateful patient sent them to us after they had left.”
“How lovely of them. And so well deserved!” I said. Then started off on the rest of my rounds.
Suddenly I realized that the reason the flowers had caught my attention was because there are so few of them about. Pre Covid-19 days there were blossoms everywhere. Certainly around the nurses’ station where people would often leave their bouquets on their departure.
I started to investigate.
“It’s true,” said a seasoned nursing assistant, who has kindness and joy coming from her pores.
“I passed by a patient’s room the other day and thought how bright and cheery it looked through the open door. It’s only now I realize that it was because he had three flower arrangements in there. That wouldn’t be unusual in the old days. Before the Virus March madness began. But now, few of the patients have flowers in their rooms."
“Why?” I asked. “Why on earth is that?”
“Well there are hardly any visitors allowed” she said. “When friends and family come they often bring flowers. So we are missing those. A few months ago when the no visitor rule went into effect, it didn’t seem to matter so much. Patients stayed for the shortest time possible because they were so terrified of being in the hospital. And besides the virus patients, only the most necessary procedures were being done. But now we are back to regular operations and patients are in here for much longer. They get really lonely without visitors. And their rooms often seem – well unhappy. Now I realize. It’s the lack of flowers!
"Their families send them other things though. Things that they would have normally brought in themselves. Now they have to leave them at the main security desk in the foyer. It is stuff like batteries for hearing aids, clothes, and phones and books and cards. It’s usually the assistants who go down and get them. I’m often up and down six and seven times a day. That’s because we don’t have any volunteers. Only ones that are between 18 and 60 are allowed – and that cuts out most of them as they come to work with us after they are retired. And the ones that can come aren’t allowed back on the floors yet.”
“Is it the volunteers who normally wheel people out when they are released?” I asked.
“That’s right. Well at least they used to.” She said. “And so now we do that.”
I remembered seeing a third floor Nurse Manager pushing a wheelchair to the foyer. In fact I’d seen her do so several times. Now I realized it was servant leadership in action.
Still intrigued I asked the security officer at the front desk, the one who welcomes everyone with grace and love:
“Are you getting many flowers for the patients?”
“No!” She said. “Very few! Of course a few months ago when the virus really took hold, the florist shops were closed. But they still sold flowers in the supermarkets. I don’t think people wanted to come here to drop them off though. If you remember people were terrified of anything to do with the hospital.
“Nowadays we do get a few arrangements. Though not that many. Which surprises me given how sick some of our patients are. We keep the flowers here until a staff member can come down from the floors and get them."
I went to the gift shop. The wonderful sales lady said virtually the same thing.
“We were closed for so long so people couldn’t get anything from us. Just recently, after we re-opened, we started stocking flowers again. But we are not selling many. But then there are only a few visitors,though we do get some phone orders. Of course we are only opened in a limited way, from 12-4 pm Monday to Friday. That doesn’t help.”
Then her face broke into a big conspiratorial grin.
“One man phoned from his sick bed here in the hospital and ordered his own,” she said. “He said he wanted something bright and living to cheer up his room. I was delighted to send them up.”
I wondered if it was the man with the three arrangements.
I also wondered why I didn’t buy myself flowers more often.
Right by the gift shop, in the corridor, are several huge photographs. One is a close up of a dramatic sunflower. I pass by those photographs multiple times a day. But it was after having that conversation in the gift store about buying flowers that the sunflower triggered a memory and acted as a portal to the past.
I remembered being in London twenty-four years ago when my mother was at the Royal Marsden Cancer hospital. She was in the last few months of her life. I mentioned in an earlier parable how much my mother loved flowers, and that my father and I ensured that she always had fresh flowers in her room. Her friends from all over the world also sent arrangements. Or they sent money for us to buy flowers. Her room looked like a glorious, garden show, and the sight made my mother extremely happy and comforted.
They were a splash of color and life as she was facing her own mortality.
The death of a beloved parent is an intense, emotional, sacred, exhausting time.
I had that as my main focus against a backdrop of other intense, heart-wringing challenges.
One day I was at the end of myself. I had left my mother’s side with money that had just arrived in a card. I was going to buy her flowers at the sender’s request. On the way to the front entrance I slipped into the hospital’s non denomination chapel where I had my own private pity party.
“Lord!” “I said. “Where are you? I need to know you love me in a tangible way today. I just do. I feel so bereft. So alone. I wish I had a husband who would buy me flowers to show he cares. Someone I can lean on. I know that’s silly. And I love you regardless. Amen”
And I mopped up a few tears and went to the florists and chose a beautiful arrangement. As I was ogling the floral eye candy I noticed that a man who looked like Pavarotti – the incredibly talented, iconic opera tenor - came in, made a purchase and left. I went to pay for the arrangement that I’d selected. As I did the shop owner handed me a dramatically beautiful, enormous sunflower.
A sunflower that was showing off it was that spectacular.
“That bloke that just came in. He bought it for you.” He said. “He told me he thought you looked sad and he wanted to cheer you up.”
My jaw dropped. I ran for the door to see if I could see the man to thank him, but he had disappeared into the London crowd. Maybe it was Pavarotti, or a Pavarotti-shaped angel, or just an immensely kind and caring fellow sojourner. Either way I know that sunflower came straight from the heart and hand of a dramatic God for one of his heartsick dramatic children. To let her know without a shadow of a doubt that she is loved.
She is cared for.
And protected.
And that the He will always have her back.
And He always has.
The Lord knows that I love sunflowers. He also knows that I love roses even more.
Years ago in London, with the help and prayers of many volunteers, I started a theater in the church where I worked – the largest church in England at the time. We called the theater “The Rose,” short for The Rose of Sharon – one of the names of God.
So roses have always been very special to me. They speak of life-changing creativity, as well as beauty.
The same day that I heard about the man who bought his own flowers I went grocery shopping after work. By the till there was a display of gorgeous cream roses subtly tinged in the center with a soft pink. Normally I wouldn’t have spoiled myself. Finances are uncertain after the end of August. But I almost felt the Lord nudging me and saying – “Go on darling. You are so worth it. Buy them.”
I did.
I am looking at them as I write. They are beautiful. They remind me of one of my favorite scriptures.
Isaiah 35:1: (Indeed the whole chapter was the manifesto for The Rose Theater.)
“The desert shall rejoice and blossom and become like the rose.”
This Coronavirus season has been a desert time for so many of us
Our lives have been turned upside down.
For many there has been loneliness, despair, quiet desperation.
The virus seems to be never ending. In our hospital there is a small spike with seven Covid-19 patients and eleven under investigation. In other parts of the country cases are soaring.
I thought it would all be over by now. It isn’t.
Fear seems to be an integral part of this virus. For some, debilitating fear. Many of us will come to the end of ourselves before this season is over. Sometimes more than once.
When that happens, may we remember the words in the Good Book in Isaiah 43:12:
“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out…”
He will be there when we most need Him. The despair will pass. The vast, empty, lonely wilderness will not be a permanent home.
May you know light in the darkness.
Laughter in the sadness.
Joy in the despair.
May there be the equivalent of sunflowers and roses in your present – splashes of love and light in whatever form that brings you joy.
May you have a sure knowledge that the Lord is a God of miracles both domestic and dramatic. And when your spirit cries out for affirmation may He send you your own unique version of a handsome stranger with a sunflower to show you that you are loved.
The Lord is a God of power, compassion, creativity and joy. He is the God who sees you. And loves you. And wants the best for you.
He is already in your future and in mine.
Which means that our futures will be good.a
