After the divorce, my daughter started spending more and more time at a friend’s house. Given all the issues that were in play, I was glad that she had a supportive place to go that had a LOT less drama to deal with. They were good, supportive, people, who seemed to help her adjust to the new normal. They were even into cosplay and Dungeons & Dragons (old school) which gave her constructive distractions from the mess we found oufselves in. Over time, she became very attached to their “normal” family atmosphere, went to their family celebrations and met their extended family. When her friend’s grandma moved in with them to get help with some health conditions, my daughter formed a bond with her. From my daughter’s description of “grandma”, she was a tough old broad, who’d lived a life, and had litte tolerance for stupidity, and I say that with love and respect.
Years passed, my daughter got on with school, work, and life, but still managed to keep some form of contact with her “adopted family”. When she got the call that her friend’s grandmother had died, she was devastated. Having never had to deal with the death of someone she knew and the grief that comes with loss, this was one of those life lessons she just had to get through.
At the funeral, which was right in the middle of the pandemic lock down, she found a role helping the funeral director by starting small talk with visitors so she could herd them away from the door and spread the little groups out to keep some kind of social distancing enforced. Being the first funeral she’s attended, it was hard on her. When the service was over, the family asked her to take one of the flower arrangements or plants with her, since they didn’t need nearly as many as they had been sent. Rather than take one of the big, splashy arrangements, she selected a simple vase with red and white roses.
When she came home, I could tell the day had been very stressful and asked her how it went. The initial part of the conversation was what you might expect: sadness, grief, surprise/realization at her inability to make the situation better, surprise at being offered a job by the funeral director, and a general deep sense of loss. I tried to reassure her that this was part of adulthood and she did what she could, which is all you can do.
As she continued talking, the conversation suddenly went off the rails. At one point, she slipped in that as she was talking to the mom who had just lost her mother, my daughter relayed that she has told them I would make her something in memory of the deceased, incorporating the flowers she had brought home with her. Then she went on trying to tell me a story about this one group of people who came in but would NOT move more than three feet away from the front door.
Wait, what? Can we back up just a bit?
When I stopped her story and asked exactly what she had volunteered me to create, things got real nebulous, real quick. At first, it was a simple bowl, with rose petals affixed on the outside. Then, it morphed to the rose petals being encased in resin. Then it became big enough it could sit on their coffee table and be used to hold “stuff”. Then, as she was throwing out ideas for adding color, pyrography, and even some hand carving, I stopped her. My initial reaction was anger, that she’d put me out on a such a thin limb, for a project that would have such a sentimental impact. It’s one thing to screw up a bottle stopper she wanted to give to her professor, it’s a whole different universe when you’re literally dealing with a deceased grandmother and flowers from her coffin. I told her I’d have to think about it, so she continued with her story of the door blockers.
After a night of sleep, some quiet reflection, and what I think is a better understanding of the situation she was in, I chose to do the project. Not because I was particularly thrilled to do it, but because she had absolute faith in me and that I’d create something that would more than cover the gift she’d promised. Somewhere in that vote of confidence was a reason to start.
After a brief conversation the next day, I showed her a piece of sycamore that I was planning to use for a large shallow bowl with a highly embellished rim, explained that I could encase the petals in epoxy, but NOT in the way she thought, and that I could undercut the rim and make it deeper than I had planned. She was smiling as she agreed with the design. Then the hard part of pulling this off started.
The initial turning part was pretty easy: Create a bowl with a flowing ogee curve and create a channel in the top that could hold the petals and epoxy. Then came the petals. Epoxy and moisture do NOT play well together, so the petals had to be dried. Rather than wait for mother nature and risk the colors dulling, or risk setting them on fire by using an oven, I put them in silicone desiccant for a couple days and that did the trick.
The epoxy work was pretty straight forward. Pour some resin, let it cure. Put down some petals, pour some more resin, let is cure. Put down more petals, pour some more resin, let is cure. Lather, rinse, repeat. There ended up being four layers of petals. On a whim, I added just a hint of yellow, iridescent, mica powder to each pour, thinking it would add just a hint of sparkle mixed in with the resin. It didn’t turn out to be a hint, it was more like a 4 year old yelling out what the secret Christmas present is before anyone had a chance to open it. I showed my daughter, bracing myself for the look of disappointment and thinking I had enough petals left to turn it all out and start over. When she saw it, she smiled and said yellow was her adopted grandma’s favorite color and this was perfect! Guess sometimes you just get lucky.
A little more time on the lathe to smooth out the top, turn out the middle bowl part, and work on the undercut of the rim and it is finished. It ended up being about 16″ across, which should sit nicely on a coffee table, and deep enough to hold TV remotes.
Hopefully, the family that gets it will appreciate the effort
