Originally published by The New York Times in their ‘Modern Love’ ‘Tiny Love Stories’ Column that features love stories of no more than 100 words.
Our house in Gloucestershire, England, is full of flowers that Dad buys for Mum. She’s allergic to lilies but adores every other kind of plant, tree or foliage. They fill our kitchen. Whenever a bunch of flowers dies, Mum delights in opening the windows and flinging the flowers onto the grass below to decompose and rejoin the earth. Dad knows flowers can’t decompose on the lawn but cannot bear to spoil Mum’s joy in being part of this circle of life. So, he sneaks outside, takes the dead flowers and puts them in the compost bin.
Lucy Hicks Beach 