Thanks Jo, and thank you for the photo. I can see why your stepmother responded the way she did. It is a full, generous arrangement, the kind that holds its own on a bench and keeps giving for a week or more, which is what natives do in a vase.

For someone who has just lost a sister, a lasting arrangement at home is a gentle sort of company. It asks nothing of her, just sits there being something good to look at on the hard days, and a lift on one of those days is no small thing. You were thinking of her at exactly the right moment.

It was beautiful, and it reached her when she needed it most. Kind of you to have sent it, over to Berry.

Andrew & Siobhan Lily's Florist