Every time my husband gets a haircut, he comes home with flowers.
He has always been a flower sender, but this is different.
A little grocery store bouquet that adds a touch of whimsy to my kitchen.
It is a sweet gesture because it lets me know that he was thinking about me.

Daisies are my favorite flower.
Inevitably, there will be daisies in the little grocery store bouquet.
However, the daisies are usually colored to match the season.
They very rarely have the typical white petals with a yellow center.

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The floors in my house creak.
Not all the floors in my house, just some of them.
There is one place in particular that comes to mind.
One place in particular that has the loudest creak.

The loudest creak comes from a floorboard in the room that belonged to my sons.
As soon as you enter the room, the floor creaks quite loudly.
I used to appreciate the sound when the boys were at home.
I always knew when they got up each morning.

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My husband is an engineer.
Engineers have a different way of thinking.
Married to someone like me is an interesting journey.
We couldn’t be more different in the way we approach life.

That makes things fascinating.
He with his logic and facts and precision.
He admits that he is the “big picture guy.”
Details are not something that he is interested in at all.

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I visited a wonderful bookstore this past weekend.
Shelves that almost touched the ceiling lined the walls.
Rare, used, and new books filled every crevice.
The store was divided in sections according to category.

I headed first to the children’s section.
I perused the shelves and saw spines of books that I immediately recognized.
I watched a mother read a book to her child at one of the tables.
Memories came flooding back to the times I read to my own children.

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Sometimes you see things during the course of your day that make you pause.
Last week, I saw two things on separate days.
They seemed out of the ordinary so it made me take notice.
Taking notice is one thing; understanding is another.

I was heading home after a day filled with errands.
The kind of errand-filled day that requires you to get in and out of your car frequently.
I was going home thinking about how a nice cup of tea would be perfect.
I was nearing the turnpike entrance.

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March is a month of birthdays in our family.
My husband and my firstborn have birthdays one week apart.
I tease my husband from his birthday in mid-March until my birthday in July.
Oh, how I love to be younger than him for four months of the year.

This same daughter overheard my teasing through the years.
When she went to preschool, the celebration of birthdays was always something special.
She told her preschool teacher that she and her daddy had birthdays close together.
She also told her teacher that her mommy was married to an older man.

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Growing up, news was reported in the newspaper, on the radio, and on television.
You would always see people on a train or bus with the newspaper tucked under their arm.
You knew that most people tuned into their local news station and 6:00 and 11:00.
If a major news story happened, a special report broke into the daily programing.

There was no need for twenty-four hour news reports.
Journalism was a trusted profession.
The times between broadcasts were used to gather information.
It was the time to check and double-check the facts before they aired.

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If you really want to show someone you love them, then listen to them.
I remember reading that sentence a few years ago and it has never left me.
It is profoundly simple.
It is inexorably true.

One of my children will always be an object lesson for that statement.
The one child who, tongue in cheek, will say, nobody ever listens to me.
It is not said out of desperation for she knows she is deeply loved.
It is said more out of frustration since in a family of five children, there are many voices.

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I went to the cash register, the one where you scan the items yourself.
The line was long since more winter weather is in the forecast.
It was the typical assortment of milk and bread that I saw in people’s baskets.
I was buying fruit and a few other things.

Six registers all being used with at least that many people waiting in line.
One by one people finished, and one by one people stepped up to begin.
Finally it was my turn.
A woman finished bagging her things and turned and smiled at those of us in line.

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When my children were little, I put notes in their lunchbox.
Sometimes the note would be on a napkin.
Sometimes the note would be on an index card.
The note was a tangible reminder of my love for them.

When they were really young, and not yet able to read, the notes were in pictures.
An eye, a heart, and the letter U said it all.
U R Gr8 was another note they loved to decode.
It was my way of letting them know I was thinking about them during the day.

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