🍃💜The other day...

🍃💜The other day, 

leaving work, 

I stopped at a florist to give a thought to a person I had to go to see.

I was in a hurry, 

more or less as always, 

because it is now a prerogative to live with time that gets out of hand.

The flower girl was serving an old gentleman.

A dark green loden up to his feet, 

slightly worn brown shoes, 

white hair and lots of wrinkles on his face.

Eighty years, 

maybe more.

He was slightly hunched over and his speech had a slow progression.

Too slow for my rush.

He chose long-stemmed roses, 

lots of them.

Odd and red.

For every rose the flower girl picked up, 

he made sure it was perfect.

That the leaves were green, 

that it hadn't blossomed but not too closed either.

One, 

however, 

did not convince him.

And then she took it, 

with her hand shaking and kindly asked to replace it.

Every now and then a cough made him become even more curved, 

but not so much that he lost sight of every single flower.

He chose to put some fir twigs together with the roses.

Just like him personally, 

he chose the most beautiful bow to tie them together.

A good ten minutes had passed, 

and I could already see all the afternoon's appointments passing by.

I thought about the tiredness, 

the delay I would have made to my meeting and the other commitments that I might have missed because of the old gentleman.

When he arrived to pay, 

the man with the green loden, 

with his usual trembling hand, 

took out his wallet and in a kind voice said:

"I wasted your time, 

sorry, 

but I wanted it to be perfect.

It's my wife's Christmas present."

The flower girl, 

a lady in her fifties, 

with teased hair and unlikely glasses pulled down on her nose, replied:

"You'll see that it will make you happy."

The trembling man looked at her again:

"I'm sure.

Now I'll take it to the cemetery."

He took his beautiful roses, 

sketched a smile as he met my eyes and, 

hunched and limping, 

he left.

Here you are.

What I wish you for these holidays is to be able to love like this.

A wife, 

a lover, 

a son, 

a friend, 

a dog.

But to love him with a love that is not afraid of anything.

Not even death.

Because love is forever and because the only time that doesn't add up is the time spent not loving.

Everything else can wait... 

💜💖💗💕💓💘💞💝