Grief flowers in the aftermath of terror
Florists in Taranaki and all over the country have become unofficial counsellors in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Fifty people died in Friday’s attacks and since then florists have done brisk business as thousands of bouquets have been purchased to leave at mosques, Islamic centres and makeshift memorials.
New Plymouth florist Leisha Scott found herself acting as a counsellor for most customers, she said. ‘‘People are just devastated, they’re just numb, they don’t know what to do.
‘‘In a sense you are a counsellor – people share their grief with you. The good, the bad and the ugly.’’
The owner of Simply Blooming Florist and Gifts, in Westown, said she’d seen plenty of extra bouquets go out the door, a lot without cards.
‘‘What can they say? There’s no words. And flowers say a lot, without saying anything.’’
Wellington florist Kamini Soma said she had talked with countless numbers of grieving people.
She described the day after the shootings as her hardest ever in the job.
Soma owns The Flower Shop, just around the corner from the Kilbirnie Mosque where hundreds of people have left flowers.
‘‘I’ve been non-stop since
6.30am on Saturday morning,’’ Soma said. ‘‘And when I finished and closed the door I cried for a good hour.’’
Soma had to stop taking online orders and doing deliveries to spend time with the people who came into the shop.
‘‘I’ve basically been a mini counsellor for each customer.’’
In Christchurch, nearly half of the Citywide Florist’s orders had come from out of town, requesting bouquets be delivered to the Deans Ave mosque where
42 people were killed.
Neal Parker said it was so busy he had been called in to lend a hand at his wife’s shop, just as he would be on Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day – but this is a far more tragic time for his city.
Parker said 90 per cent of their customers on Saturday and Monday were buying flowers to pay respects to the dead, and many were from out of town.
It was a similar scene in Ha¯wera, where one florist said she had also been busy at the weekend and into this week.
Lovell’s Flowers owner Steffi Chapman said there had been a lot of people coming into the store and asking for flowers to take to the Ha¯wera Islamic Centre. ‘‘It was to the point that I was almost sold out."
Since Monday there had been more requests to send flowers down to Christchurch. Chapman thought this was for Ha¯ wera Hospital’s Dr Amjad Hamid, who lived in Christchurch and died in the shootings.