I think I was maybe four days postpartum, in the middle of a July heat wave. I was spending my days at that point in bed trying to figure out how to take care of a newborn and feed myself. Since it was so hot, my baby and I lounged around mostly in our respective diapers and not much else. I had gotten good at ignoring the knocks on the door in the middle of the day. 
 

At probably three in the afternoon there was a knock at my door. I did my usual— ignored it. Then the knock happened again, louder— Ignored. My phone began to ring and it was a flower delivery guy calling to say he was at my door with my delivery. I almost told him to just leave the flowers outside. But it was really hot and I didn't want them to die. Instead, I told him to just give me a minute, that I was holding my newborn, needed to dress myself, and that I was moving rather slowly. When I finally answered the door holding my sleepy baby, he held out the flowers as if I was going to be able to take them with one hand. I looked at him and asked: “Can you just come in and set them down in the kitchen?” He was nice enough and did, and before he left he congratulated me on the baby.

I opened the envelope to find a sweet note from my best friend who was a thousand miles away in my home state. The bouquet of flowers was absolutely beautiful.

 

 

I didn’t even have a chance to unwrap the flowers because my hungry baby summoned me to our spot on the couch where we’d spend the next few hours together nursing and napping. 

The gesture of flowers was lovely, it was sent purely out of love from my best friend who was so far away and so eager to celebrate me and my baby. And if she would have been the first of us to have a baby, I probably would have sent flowers to her too. But she didn't know, and I didn't know that what I would need at the four day postpartum mark would be a meal, not a beautiful bouquet of flowers.