Kammie Lantz was hastening to the hydrangea stems when the phone rang.
Over the sounds of rustling and clipping — flower shop sounds — she answered, with a shoot of a chuckle.
“Thank you for calling. Yes, we’re definitely busy, but I’m not complaining. How can I help?”
She had been giving variations of that greeting all morning.
That’s because Kam’s Florist, the Terra Alta enterprise she owns and operates with her husband, Jamie, had been tilling for Mother’s Day.
And Mother’s Day, even with a COVID-19 corsage, is still Mother’s Day.
Except when it isn’t.
“Well, it’s different this year for sure,” she said.
“Our inventory is limited, but we’re lucky we got to reopen.”
The shop is known for her innovative designs and personal touches.
Her arrangements are adorned with notes, sayings and definitely a grouping of the recipient’s favorite flowers — since that’s the bloom of customer service.
Weddings and graduations.
Anniversaries.
Corporate dinners.
Funerals.
And, Mother’s Day.
If the occasion calls for flowers in this close-knit, Preston County mountain town, someone will pick up a phone, Lantz will reply with that variant greeting, and the arrangement will arrive.
The pandemic threatened to nip all of that in the bud.
According to a survey earlier this month by the Society for American Florists, the national trade organization of the industry, more than 40% of respondents are expecting wilting sales this year.
Which, of course, is given the quarantining and distancing that are part of the coronavirus centerpiece.
In contrast, everything came up like roses in 2018, as chronicled by the society.
The floral industry did $4 billion that year.
Lantz has an evergreen optimism.
She already has a wedding booked this summer, with silk flowers standing in for the real thing.
In the 1990s, she and Jamie rented a space for a craft shop, where she got into flowers, by accidental design.
To save money, they converted their (rent-free) garage at home, and Kam’s Florist was born.
Their daughter, Megan, was too. Who expects the shadow of cancer on a first-grader?
Megan was 8 when the illness took her, two years after the diagnosis.
Kam’s Florist went away for a while, but just like a dandelion in a front yard mowed to the consistency of a putting green — it came back.
The love and blessings of a lost little girl did, too. And still do.
“We get these reminders all the time,” Lantz said. “It’s like she’s looking in on us.”
For this florist, Mother’s Day isn’t about the cost ledger, even if it is her livelihood.
It’s about that kind of love.
“It’s an honor any time I get to do an arrangement for somebody’s mom.”
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