My First Love

My daddy was my first love.

He died when I was just 10 years old, so there is much I do not remember about him or didn't fully understand about him in the way grown-ups come to more fully understand people. To me, Daddy David was fun and funny, passionate, hard-working, my hero and prince charming.

He worked in construction for a while when I was a young child, and I remember him teaching me things like hammering, sawing, setting a toilet, using a wrench. Then after awhile he got a job appraising real estate, and he taught me how to use a map. Those were days way before gps - he used a good old-fashioned spiral bound Thomas Bros. street map to find his way around San Diego County. I thought that thing was super cool. I still think maps are super cool.

We also threw newspapers together on our bikes. Well, he threw, I rode. I'm sure my mom was just grateful to have my energy worn down before 6am every day. :-)

Anyway, one of my best memories of my dad was something he wasn't even there for. I was 4 or 5 years old at the time and at home with mom one day, when I noticed out the front window of our apartment a man walking up to our front door carrying a big basket of flowers. How exciting!!!! As it turns out, the flowers were FOR ME, from my first love, my daddy. He sent me flowers! I don't know why he did it, but it was the very most special thing in the world he could have done for me to tell me he loved me. I remember being captivated by the variety of flowers in that basket - a full rainbow of colors, and some I had never seen before, like tulips. Tulips don't grow naturally in Southern California.

This event is probably was started my whole love affair with flowers. As I grew up, I adored them. Planted them in the garden. Tended, or tried to tend, rosebushes alongside my dad. Used my allowance to buy them from the nursery for my mom. When we bought our first home, I went a little nuts planting flower beds around that house. Flowers, always flowers. Lots of tulips, cause they grow naturally here in Michigan.

Then, when I worked as a personal assistant, one of the things I had to do regularly was order fresh cut flowers for the houses. They were everywhere. ALL the time. And they had to look perfect, ALL the time. If they were starting to die, I would hear about it, and I'd have to call the florist to complain that her mums weren't lasting a whole week, come fix them. And when the flowers did die, as all cut flowers do, we would have to empty all the containers and clean them and get them ready for the next batch of fresh cut flowers. When you do this times so many arrangements and times so many weeks, it gets really old really fast. And I think it seemed so trite to me because the flowers weren't really special - they didn't come from daddy, didn't mean anything to anybody - they were just there to maintain an air of beauty and richness that was actually pretty shallow.

So I started hating flowers. They were messy. They stank. They took caring for that I didn't have the time to do. They would eventually die anyway, so why have them in the house? What was the point? It's hard to enjoy something you know is going to make a mess and then die. Bah, humbug, flowers. I hate you.

Fast forward to this week. Lots of healing has taken place in my heart over the last weeks and months and year. A few days back I was playing outside with Leah and Susie, and we came across a batch of wild columbine growing along the side of our house and blooming beautifully. I cut a handful of stems and brought them inside, put them in a vase, and put them in the middle of the kitchen table. I kind of liked it.

Then, as all cut flowers do, they began to die. So day before yesterday I dumped them out and cleaned up the petals that had dropped, and as I did, a shadowy thought passed through my mind...

It was kind of nice having these fresh flowers in the house...

Maybe an hour later, Susie comes hollering -  "Mom! There's a van in the driveway! Who's here?!!" 

"I don't know?" I say, walking into the living room and looking out. 

We three girls stand in the living room watching what is to me a familiar drama being played out before my 4 or 5 year old eyes: 

A young man gets out of the white van. 

He opens the side door and pulls out a basket of plants and a bouquet of flowers... tulips, no less. 

He comes walking up to our front door.

As it turns out, the flowers were FOR ME, from my First Love. 

My Daddy. 

How do I know this? 

This is what I read in my morning devotion that day, from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young:

If I am the Master of your life, I will also be your First Love. Your serving Me is rooted and grounded in My vast, unconditional Love for you. The lower you bow down before Me, the higher I lift you up into intimate relationship with Me. The Joy of living in My Presence outshines all other pleasures. I want you to reflect My joyous Light by living in increasing intimacy with Me. 

Who else would have known what those flowers from my Daddy David meant to me as a young girl? Who else would have known to send tulips?

Who else would have known that the trials and hardships of life had robbed me of the joy of something I once found so enjoyable? Who else would desire to see my heart healed?

Who else would have seen the shadowed thought that passed through my mind maybe an hour before my doorbell rang?

Who else desires to live in increasing intimacy with me???

I know you're wondering who the flowers REALLY came from. They came from the florist I used to know when I worked as a personal assistant. I haven't talked to her in months and months. It's the middle of prom season and Mother's Day - arguably the busiest, craziest time of year for florists. Her shop is 40 minutes from where I live. She sent her driver all the way out here with a card that said "Just Because".

Just because my Daddy wanted to tell me He loves me - so He sent me flowers at home one day.