幸せのお裾分け

Sharing Happiness

晴れた週末が明けてどんよりした曇り空の月曜日。ランチを買いに出かけようとアパートの階段を降りていくと、そこにはバケツに入った沢山の花が置いてありました。

「ご自由にどうぞ」と張り紙が添えてあり、どうやら1階の住人の方からみたいです。

私はかかえられるだけの花を手に取り、1階の住人のお宅をノックすると、家の中から顔見知りのご婦人が出て来ました。

「こんなに綺麗なお花頂いてもいいんですか？」と私が尋ねると、「息子が週末に結婚して、結婚式で使ったお花がもったいないから持って帰ってきたの」とのこと。「好きなだけもらってね」とニコニコの笑顔。婦人の玄関先にも沢山の花が飾られていました。

私は婦人に感謝をすると早速家に戻って花のアレンジをしました。

色も形も様々で、お花屋さんで整えられたというよりは、庭に生えていた花を摘んで集めてきた様なナチュラルな雰囲気。「きっと結婚式も青空の下でガーデンパーティーだったのかな？」と花を触りながら想像してみました。

きっとご婦人も息子さんの結婚式で幸せいっぱいになり、その幸せを私達にもお裾分けしたくなったのかもしれません。

どんよりした月曜日でしたが、お花が幸せな気分を運んできてくれたみたいです。

Sharing Happiness

It was a gloomy, cloudy Monday after the sunny weekend. When I went down the stairs of my flat to go out and buy lunch, I found a couple of buckets filled with flowers with a note saying "Please help yourself". They appeared to be from the neighbour on the first floor.

I picked up as many flowers as I could hold and knocked on the door of the people living on the first floor. A lady with a familiar face came out from the door.

"Can I really take these beautiful flowers?" I asked. She replied with a smile, "Our son got married over the weekend, and these flowers were used for the wedding. They seemed too precious to be left behind, so I brought them back home." She smiled again and said, "Please take as many as you like."  I noticed inside of her house was filled with many more flowers as well.

I thanked her and immediately went home to arrange the flowers.
The flowers were of various colours and shapes, and looked natural, as if they had been picked from a garden rather than arranged by a professional florist. I wondered if the wedding was a garden party under the blue sky. I tried to imagine it as I touched the flowers.

Perhaps the lady wanted to share the happiness she experienced at her son's wedding with us by giving us these flowers.

It was a gloomy Monday morning to start with, but it seems like the flowers brought me a happy mood.