Farewell Flowers

Funeral Floral Tributes I call Farewell Flowers graced many a Funeral years ago when I worked in small flower shops, then grocery store floral departments, so it was often a lot of time-pressured designing I did for all the friends and families who acknowledged the deceased and comforted the living this way then. Even Nursing Home residents often got to enjoy the flowers sent to them after the Services.

Sometimes customers ordering Farewell Flowers had special requests like feathers, fishing gear, lighthouses, toy firetrucks, things that represented special interests, hobbies, sports, even jobs. I rarely had time or opportunity to photograph all the Tributes and other occasion flower bouquets and arrangements I designed over the years. When having to copy a floral design picture, it felt like I was doing ‘paint by numbers’. I put my heart into creating anything I could design myself. Now retired, I hear that Floral Designers are most often required to be Floral Arrangers copying what customers see presented online. I’d have ‘died a thousand deaths’ making Farewell Flowers mostly that way.

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Daffodil Magic

April Daffodils in Victoria, BC

Daffodil Magic

I stopped my car to see Daffodils

splattered like paint on canvas hills,

an enchanting and wondrous sight.

There in the golden morning light,

their yellow faces shone so bright

as if Nature had painted each Flower

giving it the awesome power

to banish cares away that day.

With such great Beauty everywhere,

I took many photos to treasure

and view later with savoured pleasure.

Photos may hold Daffodil Beauty

but their Magic is still in me.

April 3, 2023

Shelley Audrey Wilson

Victoria, BC

Spring Flowers

Earth rebirths in Spring

Cheery Daffodils Reborn Before the Easter Morn’

Flowers in Bright Light

Sweet Little Flowers Delight

Grandpa

Poppies, my photograph

Grandpa

My Grandpa fought for Freedoms

in the First and Second World Wars

(freedom from cruel dictatorships

spreading tyranny’s global reach…

like freedoms ‘just to live’, be who we are,

freedom of movement, of livelihood,

privacy, personal beliefs, free speech…

those rights and freedoms denied so many

or willingly given up to feel ‘safe and secure’.)

Wounded, then diagnosed with cancer,

the Doctors gave him a different fight,

‘not long to live’, they told him.

So, he fought again to stay alive

a little longer for people he loved

and for a garden full of flowers

that was his passion and his pride.

He wrote poetry in long, harsh Winters

in his chair by the frosted window.

Growing up with Grandpa and Grandma,

I’d often hear him in his ‘drill voice’ say,

“Dorothy, how do you spell…?” or

“What word rhymes with…?”

Grandma was his ‘go to’ in those days.

Poetry, for him, always needed to rhyme.

Perhaps his poems and flowers ‘saved’ him,

sharing his life that much longer

by staying with us and his flowers

well past his Doctors’ prognosis ‘deadline’,

fighting on for a good twenty years more.

Grandpa had left behind the horrors of War

and found Life well worth living

by creating beauty with love of sharing-

that opposite of the legacies of War.

That was my Grandpa, my hero, my mentor

who still inspires me to this day.

Weeping Flowers, my photograph

(Grandpa signed all his poems Charles H. (Chuck) Thicke)

February 25, 2023

Shelley Audrey Wilson

Victoria, BC

Shy Amaryllis

This Amaryllis prefers soft candlelight to harsh glare. (She whispered her preference to me. She also prefers a bit of distance from harmful fire and heat and bows humbly even with a little support.) I posted this morning’s photo on my other site- another side that I hope will bloom to its potential at FlowerpoetShelley.

February 18, 2023

Shelley Audrey Wilson

Victoria, BC