Note to self: However rushed, when making corsages always check greenery for spiders.
I am experienced with flowers. I can whip up an arrangement in no time; make a nosegay in minutes and a corsage pronto. But when asked to make a dozen corsages before church and it’s already 8 a.m., my palms sweat.
Of course, I love a challenge and I had the flowers, my preacher husband only asked me to have a flower for the ladies at our little fellowship for Mother’s Day. I upped the order to flowers they could pin on. I thought a little rose, a little Baby’s Breath a leaf of ivy … we could forgo a ribbon, stick a pin in it and “ta-da” you have a corsage.
I grabbed my garden clippers and ran out the door. A few snips of the beautiful variegated ivy surviving in a pot outside my door and I had all I needed to open shop in my kitchen. In minutes I had about fifteen little tributes to the moms at church. I popped them in a tissue lined box and was on my way.
We gave a corsage to the oldest mom, at 92! The youngest was 26. The one with the most kids was me, so I passed it on to my friend who is raising a house full of grandchildren. Then my preacher man did a quick count and thought we had enough to give all the women a flower, which was what he wanted in the first place. After a little scrambling we got them all pinned on. It was a bittersweet moment when I realized my sweet friend sitting right behind me had given hers away as well as my daughter, so that “everyone” would have one. I had not had enough faith to believe we would have more people there than usual, but it all turned out fine, until the end of the service.
One of the ladies sitting in the back walked up holding her corsage as if she was afraid of it. Actually, she was afraid of it, with good reason.
While trying to pacify her little granddaughter during the sermon she had given it to her to play with. That is when she noticed it was moving, not the actual flower, but a creepy crawler on it. Apparently, one of “Charlotte’s” friends’ was hanging out under an ivy leaf. She told me her son took it outside really quick and discovered a little nest under one of the leaves.
I apologized for almost accidently causing a heart attack, not to mention the close encounter between child and spider. Hopefully, none of his relatives visited anyone else.
These things just wouldn’t happen to Ruth Graham.