One of the best parts of working in the floral industry is all the stories you hear about the flowers. Not just colors, varieties, shapes and sizes, but deep meanings, symbolic actions and thoughtful moments. While the Sun Valley team was down in Miami recently, I spoke with a fellow vendor named Hilliard. He works on the horticulture side of things and we've been booth neighbors at many a show over the years, his accent betrays his tanned skin and his demeanor makes me think of him as a classic British gentleman.
The flower stories I hear are generally positive, yet they often start off with a life changing event. Several years back Hilliard's mother passed away. Flowers express the inexpressible and sometimes grief and remembrance are the emotions that we have to deal with, taking the bad with the good. When Hilliard's mother died, he and his brothers and sisters took her ashes to the top of a coastal peak in central California. They opened the urn and let the Pacific wind blow the ashes into the sky, said a few prayers, shared some stories and then hiked down the mountain.
Now a dozen years later, Hilliard has one of the more touching traditions I've ever heard. He is an avid mountain biker, still looking fit in his mid-fifties. Every year for his mother's birthday which is in June, he wakes before dawn and hops on his bike with a special cargo tucked into his Camel-Back backpack.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Sun Valley Floral Group's Flower Talk