Valentine’s Day: 14 roses and a funeral
I admitted. I am a hopeless romantic. Several years ago, I bought fourteen roses for Thule as a surprise Valentine’s Day gift. I was prepared to go all out with a candlelight dinner, French champagne, and sweet jazz music. She never received the roses. I never got to see her. She had left town in a hurry for good.
Thule was my type of girl. She was model-tall, slender but not skinny, and fair-skinned, a real yellow bone. She had everything going for her: a perfect body complete with curves. She had beautiful blue eyes, and the dazzling set of angelic white teeth of hers gleamed as she gently blew on her crimson-red fingernails. She had saccharin-sweet lips that spoke only kind words. They were soft flowers. She had a soft voice and a bubbly personality. When she smiled, her oyster white teeth lit up the room. Her high cheekbones made her face look almost perfect. She always smelled good, the scent of her perfume always mesmerized my senses. When she walked, it seemed like a perfectly choreographed move. She spoke quietly with her iconic smile permanently on.
It didn’t help that she was a hairstylist by profession and had her own hair salon. She always wore it long and in a sophisticated way like a brunette. She dressed to kill, always with different gold chains around her neck. I once asked her about her fashion sense, she said, “I design my own clothes.” For lack of a better word, Thule was truly a village beauty, beautiful inside and out. I was crazy about her. She had violated my heart. She was always in mind. In my downtime, she always imagined her soft lips touching mine and whispering sweet words in my ear. She was indeed my lily flower.
Our mutual love was reciprocated. She boosted my ego to no end. She always commented that my smile was contagious. She told me that I was not capable of making her angry. She was just as interested as I was. My relationship with Thule started like a house on fire. It was love on sight. I never knew that was possible. But why did she leave town unexpectedly? I guess I’ll never know.
Dear reader, let me take you back to that fateful Valentine’s Day at noon. He was dressed to the nines. He had fourteen roses in my hands. He was drugged with love. As he walked up the stairs to the Thule hair salon, he was humming tunes from the Don Williams hit song “True Love.” The letter went something like this:
Well you know it’s true love
deeper than deep
hotter than a fire
Well it’s hard to find and it’s harder to keep
It is what we want most.
I walked into the Thule hair salon in high spirits with roses in hand only to be met with somber faces. Thule was nowhere in sight. I recognized only three of his friends who were meant to be busy styling clients, but my entrance stopped them in their tracks. I couldn’t understand why the women who were always cheerful whenever they saw me had changed their minds. Suddenly there was pandemonium as the girls talked among themselves trying to figure out who was the oldest. I was duped.
A hastily convened committee agreed to have the representative speak to me. The chosen one did not hesitate. She announced the news matter-of-factly: Thule is dead. She was buried last month. The friend’s words cut deeply into my heart. Fortunately, they allowed the words to sink in properly before crying in unison. They were no longer crying for Thule but for me. Time stopped. This was a moment of reckoning for me. The woman I told anyone who would listen that she was in love with her; She hadn’t called or seen her for a month. There was no compelling reason for this lack of communication. He had last seen her at the end of December. She mentioned that she was not feeling well. I advised him to seek medical help. We parted on good terms. I planted a kiss on her forehead and promised to see her on New Years.
So the Valentine’s Day appearance with fourteen roses was meant to calm my lack of communication and reignite the fire between us. Well, well, the woman I wanted to surprise had a bombshell for me. As the commotion subsided, the complaints began. Involuntary tears began to roll down my cheeks. My lily flower had died an agonizing death. Alone and lonely.
The love of my life Thule, the elegant dresser, stylist, and my yellow bone died out of nowhere many moons ago, but I still grieve deeply. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. None of the friends had my cell phone number, so no one informed me of the sad news.
I was so devastated by the news of Thule’s passing that I threatened to mourn her publicly wearing a black mourning cloth. I never did it. After a few minutes after the bombing and the mutual grievance, I left angrily, still with fourteen roses in hand. To this day, I don’t remember what I did with the roses. Yes, I have loved and been blessed to be loved by the best. Goodbye my lily flower. We will meet in paradise. I will bring the roses with me.
