Darling Orchid Boy: Yes, my dear Eddie; you are forever my Orchid Boy. What eighteen year old boy, especially back in the days of our beginnings, loved orchids? So it was Spring of our Sophomore year at Alma College. You were dutifully going home every weekend to work the greenhouse and the USGS, paying tuition for the terms that were your financial responsibility, not on the folks or your scholarship. And late on Saturday, you would come back to school so we could see each other. I was the girl with a choice of corsages for every dance. Bronze mums, carnations, sweetheart roses with trailing arbutus. I would choose, and your frat brothers who took the others would look really good to their dates. I knew you loved plants, but I did not yet understand how that love of plants would impact our life together.
Then, one Saturday, I was doing the ritual girl in my day thing of drying my “hair down to there” in the big pink bonnet over the huge brush rollers. I was not yet ready for prime time viewing. The intercom speaker blasted over my head. “Sylvia, Eddie’s downstairs and says to get down here.” As independent a woman as I was, I responded, “I’ll get there when I get there.” A few minutes later, the freshman on the desk was back on the intercom. “He left, but, oh my goodness, come see what he left.” That got my attention. And to my wondering eyes did appear a full spray of pale purple Cattleya–the whole spray, five of them. And we laughed, and I learned you were an orchid boy. You had your own aquarium home for your orchids. And you have had them ever since; and you have been my special orchid boy ever since, too.
In fifty plus years of living and loving with you, we have also lived with orchids in one way or another. We have visited a zillion botanical gardens. When you were teaching at Reinhardt, you had wide shelves built as window sills in your lab to accommodate your teaching collections and your orchids. As the big cattleyas came into bloom, you would bring them to live in my office. The most blooms at one time was 16 huge white blooms. Sometimes, the whites and purples would bloom at the same time. The students would say, “Dr. Rob loves Mrs. Rob.” I would think “Orchid Boy.”
Now, your orchids reside in your backyard greenhouse. The collection has grown; the orchids summer out under the oak tree, and come into the house to grace the mantel, the kitchen sink, the bathroom counter… We factor orchids into decisions about how to play. We have enjoyed Orchid Daze at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, but our new favorite stop is at Peach State Orchids. You found them while looking for baby orchids on the web. They are a delightful spot right in our own county. We wrote their name on a list of dates we promised to each other. How lovely to go there with you. We ooh and ahh. We shop for gifts. You come home with a box of small, not blooming, question marks, and you baby them and wait for surprises to share with me. Daily, we check out the Facebook page where Danielle posts beauty after beauty. And, we enjoy together. You and me Orchid Boy.
I love you. Thank you for playing with me. Thank you for having an Orchid Boy soul.
Love, Sylvia