There’s a hell for flowers: the Walmart floral department. It’s a tragic juvenile detention center for young unwanted flowers who weren’t conceived in love, but in huge greenhouses, and then buried alive in the coffins of a tractor-trailer where they are hauled across the frozen winter highways of the nation and unloaded en masse onto the concrete of Walmart garden departments where the employees promptly ignore them until they either die or are rescued by sympathetic saps like me. The bees are doing the best they can to help, but it’s a daunting task.
“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”
-A. A.Milne, When We Were Very Young
The marigolds, which mean “grief”, oddly enough, always seem to do fine at Walmart.
“She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.”
-Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated
But, the hibiscus, which mean “Delicate Beauty” or “Sweet Disposition”, have such a hard time here, though, even as they stand there proudly and slowly die, they do have a delicate beauty that is very hard to ignore.
“Faith is why I’m here today and faith is why I made it through.” -Jonathan Anthony Burkett
“God’s Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth. Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God’s people at all—no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals nor how orthodox are their creeds and confessions.” -Ronald J. Sider
“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.” -J. K. Rowling
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” -Anne Frank