Tulipa

         Tulips were always my favorite. When I walked down the aisle on my wedding day? Tulips. When my first boyfriend asked me to the winter dance? Tulips. My theme for my baby shower? Tulips.

        This story, would finally answer all the questions about why I liked Tulips so much.

        When I was about ten years old, I would help my grandmother with her Tulip garden. She would show me how to dig up the hole, and then put the seed in. She would show me how much to water it, and how you could tell if it was a weed or just a stem. But it wasn't until two years later when she told me why she loved them so much.
       "In 1954, when I was sixteen I entered in a flower contest.Your grandfather was also there. At the time I had known who he was from school, but I never talked to him. Originally, I had several rows of roses I wanted to showcase. When I was setting up my display, someone took all of my roses off of the cart I had a few feet away. Without hesitation, your grandfather took his Tulips and gave them to me. I might have not gotten first place, but I got something much more.

     When we started dating, he would give me Tulips every Friday after school. When I married him five years later I walked down the aslie with Tulips in my hand. When I retired from my job he gave me Tulips. And don't think that those Tulips every Friday stopped either. It was if we were teenagers again."

     Moving forward from that, my grandmother got very sick. The chances of her surviving were slim, and so everyone was worried. Each morning, at about five in the morning my grandfather would get up and take a taxi to the nearest flower nursery. He would get Tulips and then take another taxi to the hospital where my grandma was. So when she woke up there would be a fresh vase of Tulips to look at and admire each day.

     My grandfather did that twenty-six times before my grandma passed.

     Even after she passed, he would still try his best to tend to her Tulip garden, even if it meant falling over and having to call 911. Each day, he would buy a new thing of Tulips and put it at her grave.

    At one point, his body just couldn't take that the fact his favorite person in the world was dead. So on that rainy Sunday morning, after the morning church service was done he died at his wife's grave, Tulips still in hand.

    I didn't really know how at the time, but that event changed something in me. And so a way to honor them, I named my first daughter, Tulipa. You might not think its a proper way to honor them, of you might not even like the name, but to me it was worth every Tulip they ever planted.