Flower Gatherers

My adventure with The Flower Gatherers first began on a chilly fall day in southern Missouri. Gramma, my dad’s mom, had passed away. It was on her birthday, weeks after her death that we came to the cemetery.

It was no surprise that there were no flowers on her tombstone. She’d alienated much of her family, including her twin sister. Many of her children, all except for my father, had died. Even her husband was gone. So no one was shocked to see no decorations on the grave that was only a few weeks old.

Even when we got flowers for her, it wasn’t us buying them. We were stingy, and we figured, flowers are flowers. Who would notice if we didn’t buy them. No one, that’s who.

“If they’re across the road from the cemetery, they’re free property,” my dad had told me. “Even if they’ve flown off the grave, if they’re still on that side, they could still magically blow back onto the right tombstone.”

This was my dad’s logic. Logic that his mom had taught him. Logic that he was teaching me, though I didn’t quite agree. For me, I just imagined the dead in the afterworld arguing.

“Your son stole my flowers!”

“Your niece only left them because she felt sorry for you!”

I felt sorry for the family members who lost the symbols of their families love for them. Meanwhile, my family didn’t even care enough to pick real flowers or buy fake ones. We walked twenty –some feet, picked plastic flowers out of the ditch and brought them back. There’s no love in that. What’s more, we were taking love that one family felt and recycled it making it mean nothing. It wasn’t right.

It was from that point that I decided I’d come back and gather up the flowers from across the street and bring them to the middle of the cemetery. I’d get them decide for themselves what belonged to who.
***

Just before midnight, I wrapped myself in a pink scarf, put on a black beanie, and covered my chest with a sweater my Gramma had made me for Christmas one year. Snow was beginning to fall which meant it’d be freezing. I started my white car with the paint chipping off of it and let it warm up. I rubbed my hands together, trying to warm them in preparation for touching the cold steering wheel. Of course, my heat wasn’t working.

I started as soon as I saw flowers in the ditch. Finding a place to park my car across the street, I left my car and began picking up flowers. Some of the arrangements were beginning to fall apart. Still, they deserved to be picked up nonetheless. After I reached half the length of the ditch, my arms were already full. I walked across the street to where I thought the middle may be, putting them in a circle. I tried to put flowers that may have fallen apart back together. For the most part, that was a failed effort.

A thin layer of snow had blanketed the grass, making it harder to see the flowers without running my foot lightly over them to make sure they were actually there. I knew I missed some, but I gathered all that I could find, bringing them to the same meeting spot as the others.

As I walked away, I kept turning back to check on the circle of flowers. Now and then, I assume from the cold, I thought I saw human figures walking, carrying flowers. I told myself it had to be the wind carrying them, not actual ghostly apparitions.

I stopped and found a tree so I could watch intently waiting for the wind to carry away more so I could assure myself I wasn’t losing it. I watched as a flower was picked directly up and began floating towards me, the outline of a young plump woman walking towards me growing more and more vivid.

Placing the arrangement on a tombstone, she brought her gaze to mine and vanished into the wind.

My expression froze, unsure what to do or say. Frozen from fear and from the cold, I watched as more flowers were picked from the ground and brought to their designated graves, the carrier vanishing and reappearing.

I was seeing the same apparitions, not the ghosts of the dead who were resting there. These were ghosts who appeared and disappeared, taking flowers and gifts to the dead that they belonged to. These were The Flower Gatherers.

As the pile of flowers dwindled, I assumed I was no longer needed. I decided to go home and get some rest. As I turned, the wind picked up blowing past me. It was so intense, it whistled past my ears. I’m not certain if I heard this or if it was wishful thinking, but I was certain I heard a “thank you.”
***

That night, when I got home and fell asleep, I had dreams of the dead relatives I’d lost and relatives I never knew. Where I’d once imagined relatives of the living fighting over flowers that were stolen and blown away, they were now watching over the world, talking, having tea, and getting along. The Flower Gatherers had brought peace to the dead spirits, and I was their only living member. Once a month, I go back and pick up flowers blown away from relatives of the living. Once a month, I have wonderful dreams of the dead coming to their relatives in their dreams to say thank you as I’d been thanked.