“Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.”
The cashier, whose lovely face I must’ve seen a hundred times, looked at me with an extra twinkle in her eye as I approached the checkout aisle, smiling as I had never seen her smile.
I had caught her usual grin given to customers many times before. Yet, this one was different – more genuine, more beautiful, a glimpse of who she was when she wasn’t at work, one of those smiles that reveals what it is trying to hide.
Though she was too polite to say anything, her expression asked the question without asking it: “Who are the flowers for?”
Yes, I was buying flowers.
Never before had she seen me purchase flowers, yet there they were on the cashier’s table right next to the chicken salad and gourmet coleslaw, a beautiful bouquet of pink roses that changed her smile beautifully anew.
If she had asked the question hidden behind her smile, I just might have answered, “For you!” (she was just that wonderful to see!) but she didn’t ask, and it wasn’t meant to be.
So, I paid the bill and went on my way, knowing the actual role these flowers would play: not as a gift, but as a reminder to look in the mirror each day and say “memento mori.”
You see, I didn’t just buy myself flowers. I also bought a replica of a human skull online. Life and Death now sit side by side on my bathroom shelf.
It’s a reminder of my genesis – from dust I came and to dust I will return – yet it’s also in remembrance of an even greater promise of a gift that no man could ever earn.
Indeed, to keep this memento mori living, I must now buy flowers every week. And beyond its mere decoration, this ritual has become a reminder of how bleak the world can seem.
After all, I only needed to buy one skull and put it in its place. Yet, each week the flowers wither – and as I watch their petals fall, that same skull, unmoved, stares me in the face.
Is this not how the world can seem at first glance? That life is so fleeting in the face of death’s permanence? These flowers that wither and fade each week – are these just like the lives of mortal men? Looking at the memento on my shelf, I can’t help but think of Job’s despairing lament, “If someone dies, will they live again?”
Yet, still, I buy new flowers each week.
I buy new flowers because I know the world is not as it seems.
I buy new flowers because I believe life is worth living even in the face of death.
I buy new flowers to remember that whoever loses his life for Him will find eternal breath.
I buy new flowers because Job’s question has already been answered in full – that a New Garden, from the font of Living Water, has sprung up once for all from the Place of the Skull.
I buy new flowers knowing their beauty will fade, yet Beauty does not die.
I buy new flowers to see the Truth that no smile can hide.
I buy new flowers in memento to defy the fallen world’s lie – that because life withers away, God does not abide.
I’m learning each week not to cling to the beautiful things of the world, whether a flower, a smile, or the twinkle of an eye. Enjoy them as they are, then let them go, be willing to say goodbye.
Entrust your heart not in the things of this world, even those that might be good, beautiful, true and blessed. Instead, surrender it all to God, and just as Saint Augustine confessed:
[W]hat in you has begun to rot will flower again; what in you has languished will be made whole; what in you has trickled away will be given form again, will be made new, and will be bound again to you.
They shall not pull you down to where they are falling, but they shall stand with you and they shall abide forever before the ever-standing and ever-abiding God.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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