White Flowers

Content: A young man reminisces about a special moment in time where he meets the woman of his dreams. He notices her with a bouquet of white flowers across a busy street, and after ‘pursuing’ her for a while, they finally engage in a relationship that’s deep and meaningful to both parties. Unfortunately, she does not live very long, an eventual victim of a drunken driving accident. The memory is still fresh in his mind and it hurts him to this day to speak about it.

White Flowers

It was an early spring evening, the wind was blowing in from the bay. Colorful local parrots and sea birds had ceased their hunting for food as dusk settled in on us. The evening had turned quiet, as quiet as it could be living on the main street of a small town. The quiet was occasionally interrupted by a passing truck or chatter from the street below. The only overbearing sound was the surf making its rhythmic crash on the rocks by the river mouth.

Chrissi asked me, “What made you change you like this?” She was right. I was a wreck and at thirty six years old, I was broken. My once arrogant and self assured manner was crushed. My once fluent and somewhat eloquent speech seemed to come out in short un-organized bursts. For God’s sake I used to work in radio. I even received the Golden Mike Award twice. I sighed, thinking of the memories and shaking my head I tried to clear my thoughts. Her question was not an easy one to answer. Nor one I had faced for a long time. She was always good at getting to the heart of the matter, damn her.

Chrissi was a good friend of mine. We met in a small town up the coast a couple years ago. We went out a few times but fortunately it turned into a good friendship instead of love. We could talk about anything, “full discloser”. She knew me better than anyone. I hadn’t let anyone as close to my heart as she was. We used to spend late hours walking the beach sharing dreams and unfortunately too many realities of life. We hadn’t spoken in the two years since I pulled my disappearing act. Thankfully she had located me through a mutual friend. I poured us each a glass of red wine and we sat.


Startled by her question I thought, do I want to deal with or just tell her to piss off? It wouldn’t surprise her either way. My eyes opened wide as I stared out at the new moon rising over the bay. I sat staring out at the water, a look of concentration on my face, as I contemplated what I would say. A tear trickled slowly down my cheek and a warm smile on my face I was re-living the memories. I said, “It had to be a miracle as I have never heard of anything like this happening before.” I can only say I was as surprised as she was that this happened. I didn’t at the time believe in miracles or love at first sight.

I first saw her on the main street of the small village I lived in south of Sydney. She was carrying a large armload of those repulsive white flowers. God only knows what they are called but they are always the first to come out in the spring. They stood out in contrast against her black dress. She walked like she had a purpose, chin up and heels clicking the pavement with every step. She turned the corner by the pub and started walking down the back street towards the West end of town. I tried to catch up with her, to get a glimpse of her face. The street was covered with people. There seemed to be hundreds milling around in the shops and on the high street.

I couldn’t help myself I had to follow her. She turned up the narrow street by the post office. She suddenly stopped, turned around looking through the human sea of people and made eye contact with me. There were many people in the street but I swear to you that she saw only me. She had the look of suffering, a far away look almost vacant. She had the strained look of someone that had suffered years of abuse. At the time I was struck less by her beauty than the extraordinary loneliness in her eyes. I could not take my eyes off her. She was beautiful.

Obeying the signal of her white flowers I followed her. She turned back down on the main street and right on the street covered by willows that drooped down to the waterfront. She never looked back, I felt her, I had no doubt that she knew I was there. I turned in another small side street and followed her. We walked in silence her on one side of the street and I on the other. Surprisingly, there was not another soul on the street. I was overcome by agony and a need to reach out to her. I felt I had to speak to her but I was worried that I might not be able to utter a word in her presence. I was worried that she would just disappear and I would never see her again. She was beautiful, beyond what I understood beauty to be. Elegant, captivating, with that one look she had put a spell on me.

If you can believe it, she turned and from across the street she asked, “Do you like my flowers?”

I remember exactly how her voice sounded. It was high pitched and had the hint of a foreign accent, maybe Eastern Europe. It seemed soft like the low note of a flute but strong enough to reach my ears. As stupid as it may sound I had the feeling that it boomed and echoed across the street and reverberated off the dirty brown walls of the back of the grocery store. It could have just ringed in my heart. I quickly crossed to her side of the street going up to her I said, “No, I don’t like your flowers.” She looked at me in surprise and suddenly, unexpectedly, I realized I have been in love with this woman all my life. Extraordinary, isn’t it. You’ll probably say I was mad.

“I will say nothing of the sort,” exclaimed Chrissi, adding “Please go on”

She looked at me in surprise and said; “Don’t you like flowers at all?”

There was, I felt, hostility in her voice I walked beside her in silence trying to walk in step with her. To my amazements I felt completely rid of shyness. “I like flowers very much, just not these,” I said.

Which flowers do you like? Was this a test, I searched my mind for an answer. I like roses and carnation but especially carnations. “Nothing smells better than fresh carnations”, I said.

“I love roses” she said,

I immediately regretted saying it, with a guilty little smile she looked up at me and tossed her flowers into the gutter. Slightly embarrassed I bent down and picked them up. Gathering them together I tried to hand them back to her. She pushed them away with a smile and I was stuck with the flowers I hated. I carried them down the street in silence, not caring how ridicules I looked.

We walked on in silence for some time until she reached over taking the flowers from me then tossed them into the street. Taking my hand in hers we walked on together.

“Go on” Chrissi said, “Please don’t leave anything out”.

“You can guess what happened after that” I reached up to wipe a sudden tear streak from my cheek with my sleeve. Love leaped out at us like a lioness at hunt. It shocked us both; I would love to explain it to you if I could understand it myself. Later she told me this wasn’t so at all. She said that we had been in love for years without ever knowing each other. That she had been merely living with another man and I had been married however I was just waiting for this moment to happen. My wife and I had divorced the year before meeting her. She was still living with her boyfriend although she seems to hate him, later I figured out that’s where the abuse was from.

She used to say that she had gone out that morning carrying those flowers for me to find her. She said if I had not found her that day she would have probably taken her life, feeling her life was so empty, sad and lonely. A day after day existence with constant mental abuse took her free spirit and joy of life.

The shock of love struck us both at once. I knew it within a moment when we found ourselves down on Shark Net Beach. We talked as if we had only parted the day before as if we had known each other for many years. The lines of stress and care melted away from her face leaving the beautiful smile and eyes that a man could loose his soul in. We agreed to meet the next day at the same place on the beach and we did. The May sun warmed our skin and the love warmed our hearts. In the days ahead this fantastic woman became my lover, my friend and my confidante. There wasn’t anything we couldn’t discuss.

She came to me every day at noon. I began waiting for her from the early morning hours. I was captivated; I waited impatiently for the creak of the garden gate at the bottom of the stairs to make its familiar sound.

The gate would creak and my heart would leap in my chest, then I would hear her soft footfalls on the steps. She only came through that door once a day but it seemed my heart would almost explode from the many false alarms. My heart went on thumping until she would turn the handle on my door where I would be right inside waiting to embrace her.

Sometimes for fun she would call my name up from the street but when I got to the deck to look down for the source of that sultry voice she would open the door to my apartment and walk in with a mischievous smile and open arms. What an incredible lover, she knew what I wanted and needed before I even thought about it. She treated my body like she did my heart, completely.

As a rule no one can keep an affair like this secret in a small town. The man she lived with didn’t know and our friends didn’t know. I am sure the people in our apartment building knew but they never knew her name.

“Who was she” asked Chrissi, deeply fascinated by this story.

She could tell by my face that I would never reveal this to anyone. The tears welled in my eyes as I pictured us together. We loved each other so intensely that we became inseparable. I have never shared love for anyone like I did with “her” She seemed perfect in every way she always exceeded my expectations in romance, in love making and in the way she always made our lunch meetings perfect. It had been going on for over a year and it was all still so intense. Some days we wouldn’t make love just sit together and read or play cards. The only time my life felt complete was the hour or two a day she was with me.

Where is she now? Chrissi asked. By the look on my face she new it was the wrong question immediately. She watched my face as tears streamed down my cheeks. I couldn’t speak for a long time. Not wanting to embarrass me she patted my hand and walked into the kitchen to get more wine. Left to my thoughts I felt the heavy truth of the matter descend on me like a concrete blanket

I said, she’s gone, I lost her in a car accident, and it was such a waste. I was in Sydney attending a conference and we had planned a weekend together in a nice hotel overlooking the harbor. A whole weekend together, what a treat and something we seldom got the opportunity to do. We were to meet at our favorite downtown café over looking the Harbor Bridge. She didn’t show, I waited for three hours before I gave up and went back to my hotel. Something didn’t feel right and I couldn’t understand it. I felt hollowed out inside, thinking it was my pride because I was thinking she stood me up.

That night as I lay in my bed alone watching the news, a special report came on showing a car wreck. A teenager driving drunk on the coast road came over into her lane and the head on that resulted was horrific. I couldn’t believe it was her but the car was hers and they announced her name.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, and then the realization soaked in. She’s gone, oh, my god she’s gone. I broke into tears of rage, wondering, trying to piece it together, and trying to understand why.
I beat my fists against the wall until they bled, laid face down on the bed and cried like a baby. I paced the floor in my living room talking to myself loudly and cussing god and every other minion that would allow this. Her smiling face burned into my minds eye like a lightning bolt in a dark sky.

I returned to my apartment the next morning, I don’t recall the drive I was numb but the memories flooded my mind in torrents. We were planning on getting married in the fall. We had plans to see the world from the view of my sailboat. We had dreams, we had plans; we had a future, now its dust.

I didn’t get out of my apartment for more than food and drink for over month. Drink I did, If there were any alcoholic genes in my family I was ready to fill them. I was pushed out of the pub at night early enough to buy a bottle and go home. My friends were nice and sympathetic for a while but they soon tired of my mood and disposition. One night drunk, I started a fight with a good friend; I wanted someone to kick my ass to try to knock out some of the misery.

Weeks later I woke up on a clear blue morning, feeling sick, dirty, hair all matted down, not remembering how I made it home. When I got to the bathroom I braced myself on the sink, wobbling on my weak arms I looked into my almost dead eyes and realized. She would not have wanted me to be this stupid. I decided then and there to straighten up my act. It took three days to get packed and ready the boat. I stopped and asked a friend of mine to come down to the dock and paint a name on the back. I changed the name of my boat to “Elise”. The next morning Elise and I followed the East Australian current north to loose myself in the South Pacific in the small islands and atolls that abound there. It was a good plan I was gone for 6 months. I dried out and am starting to get my life together. I know I will never be over her, I will never be the same and I could never forget her, but being good to myself makes me feel like I am closer to her. She was my destiny.

By the way, the garden in the back is full of those beautiful white flowers. I do love them.

We finished our wine in silence contemplating the love and the loss. Both of us were misty eyed. I told Chrissi that this was the first time I was able to talk to anyone about this and it felt good to my soul. I took so much out of me, I went into the bedroom taking the picture of Elise off the nightstand I put it on her pillow, closed my eyes and slept. And dreamed the dreams of love fulfilled.



“The secret to life is enjoying the passage of time”

James Taylor