NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) -- In a room full of flowers at a church, we usually promise for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.
If you think about it, a flower can promise the same things. The blooms bring us joy in the good times and comfort in the sad.
"There's nothing more heart-warming than the sentiment on a card or just the arrangement itself," Carol Nance Coulter said.
That last part is what's bringing volunteer after volunteer to a blossoming group called "Flower Power." Barry James is one of them and his path to the program is deeply personal.
"I knew that she had gotten flowers from here," James said.
Barry James became a volunteer after losing his wife, Bonnie. When she was coping with Alzheimer's, she often got "Flower Power" arrangements.
In the final painful days of her life, his wife, Bonnie, lived at a Georgetown nursing home.
"She was losing weight. She had already forgotten everybody," James said. "The doctor said Alzheimer's disease. There wasn't much they could do. You're looking for a miracle."
He wouldn't get that, but there was a bright spot along the way.
"You take her in the wheelchair, and her eyes would immediately go to the flowers," James said.
The roses, carnations and daisies arranged by those volunteers were meant for people like Bonnie, in nursing homes and hospice care. But the flowers often come from funerals, like Nance Coulter's brother Steve's service.
"He'd been ill with his diabetes for a few years," she said. "It had taken him down slow."
Nance Coulter recently lost him.
"July 7, just this past July," Nance Coulter said.
Her memories of Steve at his flower shop — and that look he'd get when a customer liked an arrangement — gives her comfort in knowing the floral donation would've been what he wanted.
Many of the "Flower Power" volunteers have deeply personal reasons for doing what they're doing.
"Oh, he would be glad," she said.
Flower Power helps the hurting, bonding them together in grief.
"It lets them know that other people care," said Loretta Broadway, the organizer behind Flower Power. "You're not alone."
The petals will wilt, but it’s the seeds planted that have spread a whole lot of love.
"It's super special," James said.
In addition to funeral services, "Flower Power" also gets donations from Bud's In Bloom flower shop, Nance's Florist and several Kroger stores.
Volunteers work through RSVP, which stands for Retired Senior Volunteer Program.
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