The Widow Wedding Guest

Guess who caught the bouqet?

I caught the bouquet at my friend’s wedding last weekend, and all I could do was laugh.

It’s a little funny, right? Widow catching the bouquet. Ha ha, sort of. Was it a sign from Rob? Was it just an example of me utilizing my advanced height and wingspan? While I’d like to credit the former, I can’t ignore the latter. But whether it was some sort of divine intervention or a matter of skilled hand-eye coordination is missing the point. I caught the bouquet. It felt weird. It felt goofy. It felt a little prophetic. And after I shared some knowing, frenzied smiles with the bride and a few friends, I brought the bouquet upstairs to my hotel room for safekeeping.

The next morning, I put it in a plastic bag and tried to place it into my overweight suitcase as delicately as possible. It’s currently drying on my fireplace mantle, soon to join the collection of all my other dried flowers that I’ve accumulated since my wedding day and Rob’s funeral. It’s been nearly a week, and it’s managed to maintain its sweet scent.

I compare it to my dried wedding bouquet that has sat upon a living room shelf for over two and a half years now. Did I smell my bouquet enough? Was it just as sweet? I can’t remember anymore. Maybe I never smelled it in the first place.

A fellow wedding guest asked me if weddings were hard for me.