A Single Rose at Work

When I arrived at work today and unlocked the door to my office, I found a rose on my desk. I am lucky because my husband and I work in the same school. Well, I work in three schools but my home base is at his middle school. I am also lucky because my husband often surprises me with flowers. It started when we were first dating over nine years ago.

Sometimes on his way home from campus—we were neighbors in student housing in graduate school at the University of Oregon—he would stop at a flower shop and buy me one gerbera daisy because he knew it was my favorite flower. Still is. He hardly had any money at all but at the end of the day the gerbera daisies were only 75 cents apiece. Even a poor college student can dig trough pockets and drawers and come up with 75 cents. A gift of flowers works wonders. It makes me feel appreciated and loved. It means he took time out of his day to find me an item I care about just to make me smile. I usually don’t smile when I open the door to my office at work. Today I did.