The other day, I received a phone call from a woman asking where the farm was located and what our hours were.

This kind of phone call happens all the time.

So I started into my usual spiel explaining that we’re a working flower farm, not really a traditional retail farm with regular hours, when the woman interrupted me.

“Is this Hedy?”

“Yes…”

And then she said, “This is Sheila. Kathleen’s sister.”

The shock!

Kathleen is one of my oldest friends, going all the way back to my college days.

That’s more than 40 years ago.

Like so many friendships, we eventually lost touch.

Life happened.

Careers, marriages, children, moves, responsibilities.

The years pile up surprisingly quickly.

But even though Kathleen and I haven’t been in regular contact for a long time, she’ll always be a dear friend to me.

I’ve actually known her longer than I’ve known Steve.

And when I think about it, she’s probably the only friend who knew me through practically every version of myself as an adult. She was there for a lot of the ups and downs, good decisions and bad ones, long before there was a flower farm or even an idea that someday there might be one.

What I didn’t know was that Sheila had retired from Brooklyn to Ocean City, New Jersey. Their younger sister, Barbara, who now lives in upstate New York, was visiting her.

They decided to take a trip to Cape May.

And somehow, completely unaware that this was my farm, they Googled “flower farms in Cape May.”

And that search somehow led them to our little Cape May flower farm, Seashore Flower Farm.

Of all the flower farms.

Of all the Google searches.

Of all the people who could have called that day.

Sometimes life is very strange.

So Sheila and Barbara came by the farm, and we had a wonderful visit.

And now I’m going to say something decidedly less sentimental.

Aging sucks.

I hadn’t seen these ladies in probably 30 years, and seeing them was also a rather startling reminder of just how much time had passed.

We looked older!

All of us!

Of course, they are still beautiful women. But there’s something jarring about seeing someone you remember so clearly from decades ago. In your mind, they’re somehow frozen at 25 or 30. Then they appear in front of you, and suddenly you’re confronted with the fact that while they’ve been getting older…

so have you.

I don’t notice it as much with the people I see regularly. We age together, little by little.

But put 30 years between visits?

Apparently, there’s no hiding from that.

We laughed and talked and caught up, and before they left, we promised that this time we wouldn’t let so many years go by. Especially now that Sheila is practically a neighbor in Ocean City. And hopefully this unexpected reunion will lead me back to Kathleen, too.

After they left, I kept thinking about the strange series of events that brought them here.

They weren’t looking for me.

They were looking for flowers.

And somehow, the flowers led them back to me.

More Than a Flower Farm in Cape May

When Steve and I started this farm, I thought we were growing flowers.

Four years later, I’m realizing that sometimes we’re growing something else entirely.

The farm has introduced us to people who were once strangers and are now friends. It’s brought old customers back year after year. It’s become a place where people celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, friendships and new beginnings.

And now, apparently, it can bring pieces of my own past back through the gate.

Maybe that’s one of the gifts of getting older, even if I still reserve the right to complain about the wrinkles, aches and everything else that comes with it.

There are more years behind us.

But there are also more people, more stories and more connections woven through those years.

A flower farm has seasons, and so do we.

I may occasionally prefer an earlier version of myself when I look in the mirror.

But I’m awfully grateful to be here for this one.