Sympathy Flowers
It seems like I spent this last weekend online shopping around for sympathy flowers. My Aunt Margaret Friesen died last Thursday. She was in her 90s, and in a nursing home. She was married to Dad’s brother George, and they had two sons, Phil and Paul. In the flurry of emails and phone calls on Friday evening, my youngest sister, Erma, suggested that we five siblings go together to send them each a bouquet of flowers. She could not afford to contribute though until the end of the month. So I volunteered to place the order.
I’ve been researching how to shop online in the smartest ways for my new website, so I applied all my skills. By email we agreed that we would limit our combined budget to $100. But the best looking arrangements are always more, of course. Elsie, located out on the west coast, suggested I find florists right in Oshawa, Ontario where the funeral was to be on Monday. (The viewing was at the funeral home in Huntsville on Sat. and Sun.) So I narrowed our choices down some more and emailed the links to my siblings. Then waited for feedback.
But Sunday afternoon I had picked the florist to use, but it appeared our order was too unusual to do online, I should phone it in. Because of the two time zones difference, I had to wait until early Monday morning. My 7 am was their 9 am store opening time. It took several tries to get someone answering, but I finally got our order explained, for two arrangements to be delivered to the church by 1 pm, and with cards so that Phil and Barbara would take one home, and Paul and Lynn would take the other home.
I pointed out one of their designs on their website as a guide but said their designer could follow her own head in making the arrangements. The woman was pleased that I understood this is the far better plan!
I believe Erma was going to be there, along with some other relatives, so at present I’m waiting for someone to send some photos and perhaps one of our flower arrangements.
When I called Paul he told me that they will be passing through here in August to visit their daughter and son-in-law in Alberta who were in the midst of a big move and could not return for the funeral. He promised to bring me some photos on a CD at that time.