So, as BW said, the gf is a florist.
A few years ago a girl from Winston Salem (where we live) married a guy from Chicago. More about her later - she was a Newsmax reporter, interesting.
Anyway, the groom's mother came down to help plan, a Ukranian woman, and she just fell in love with my girlfriend: loved how she did stuff, loved her shop etc. She actually asked if she could help with creating the arrangements and a bond was formed. From then on, if she needed flowers she called from Chicago to have them ordered and shipped to wherever (she stayed in Chicago until her death recently, has family here in NC, her son and his bride are in NYC etc). They would chat on the phone, my girl would send her pics from the garden etc. She often invited the gf up to Chicago, but she never made it up.
She lost her battle with cancer in August, many years she fought.
The family knew how much she enjoyed the work my gf did, so they asked if it would be possible for her to do 10 arrangements for the ceremony of life (or whatever it's called). She said yes and was looking into shipping that much up and I said, "Heck, lets just book it up there, it'll save them money too"
Yes, there are florists everywhere, in fact minutes from the ceremony we saw a florist...and the ceremony itself was at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. But the family knew what my girl meant to her - so much that when the woman's oldest son was making his speech he actually mentioned my gf by name, twice.
The trip was good but long. Hit a ton of rain on the way up. In the dark. In the mountains. And Indiana has some horrible roads. But I caught a little sleep in a rest area parking lot on Saturday morning, and then a much better rest last night just outside of Indianapolis.
Had some great food, met some wonderful people, and learned about a woman that I hate I didnt get to meet. Marina, the deceased, seemed like a really wonderful woman.
