Send Flowers

I have been logging a lot of hospital hours this last week and one thing that I never understood before it happened to me is that the flowers that you sent to people when they are in the hospital is not so much for their looks as for their smell. 

There are a lot of indignities that one has to endure in the pursuit of getting over illness.  And on occasion that can entail the leakage of various fuids out of one's body.  Not all of that leakage has a pleasant odor.  In fact, most of them can be identified based on their smell alone.  I was lucky enough to score a private room for my hospital stay, all the more lucky because of how long I had to be there.  For me it is all about the ability to deal with my illness on my own and without a stranger looking on, as well as the ability to sleep when I am able, rather than beign subject to not only my own crises but those of my neighbors, but for my husband it was all about the smell.  Thank goodness your room doesn't smell like urine, he said.  Well, true that. 

Which brings me ever circuitously back to the flowers.  My room smells like a florst, not like a hospital room at all.  If you could only rely on your nose, you would not guess where you were.  I rarely send flowers to people in the hospital and I was a complete moron about that.  To me they were just another thing that you would have to carry home with you.  But in fact, they are aroma therapy.  So be sure to include flowers that smell like flowers.  Asiatic lilies are my personal favorites.