The
First Heirbloom

The first Heirbloom
I ever made
wasn’t planned.

It started with a wedding
I showed up to empty-handed.

She was a Spanish teacher.
I taught English.

We had become close over the years,
even closer when she helped me find a place
to live after getting out of a bad relationship.
A duplex in German Village,
right across the street from where she
and her fiancé lived.

We went from coworkers…
to friends…
to neighbors.
So, I was invited to their wedding
at Darby House in Galloway.

I went alone.
And I didn’t bring a gift.
Not even a card.

I remember sitting in the back of the ceremony, already late,
already feeling it.

The aisle was lined with rose petals:
pink, orange, and yellow
stretching from front to back.
From where I sat, I could see all of them.
They were stunning.

But while the ceremony was happening,
I wasn’t fully there.
I was thinking about the next day.

About them opening gifts.
About mine not being there.

It felt small. But it didn’t.

After the ceremony,
everyone moved to cocktail hour
while the room was flipped for the reception.

I saw workers sweeping up the petals.
Pushing them into a clear plastic bag.
And I remember thinking:

What are they going to do with those?

During cocktail hour,
I learned something
about the bride’s grandfather
and a fallen tree on his property.

He cut a piece from it,
carved or burnt their names
into the wood,
and turned it into their cake stand.
He also made small wooden hearts
from the same tree,
and guests wrote messages on them.

I remember thinking how meaningful that was.
Something that had fallen…
turned into something that would stay…

And that’s when it clicked.

I went back into the ceremony space.
They told me they threw them away.
So I went dumpster-diving.
Found the bag and put it in my car.

I didn’t know what I was going to do with them.
But I knew there was something there.

Back at home, I got to work.
I had no idea what I was doing.
No knowledge of floral preservation.
No process.
No plan.

But I’ve always been an artist.
My grandpa was an artist.
My mom is an artist.
And I’ve always had a space, wherever I lived,
to set up an easel and paint.

German Village was no different.

I started by sorting the petals by color.
Pink. Orange. Yellow.
Then, without thinking much
beyond the idea itself,
I began adhering them directly
onto a 12x24 canvas.

Fresh.
Sealing them in.

I built an ombré pattern. Pink on the outside, fading into orange, then yellow at the center.
Layer by layer.
It looked beautiful.

At first.

A week later, they started turning brown.
All of them.
I was devastated.
I wanted to throw it away.

It was a rookie mistake.
Trying to preserve something without understanding how it changes.
But that mistake forced something else.

I turned to paint.
Using acrylics, I recreated
the color of the petals with a light wash,
blending back the pinks, oranges, and yellows over the now-darkened texture.
And something happened.

The texture stayed,
but the flowers weren’t obvious anymore.

They became something else.

Then I hand-painted her new last name.
Off-center.
Another mistake.

I added a small heart at the end to balance it.
And somehow,
that tiny correction became
one of my favorite parts of the piece.

The first Heirbloom took months.
They weren’t allowed to come over.
All they knew was:

“I’m working on your gift.”

When it was finally finished, I couldn’t wait.
I brought it to school and gave it to her there.
When she realized what it was,
that it was made from the petals
that lined her aisle,

she cried out of joy.

I’ll never forget that moment.

That feeling.

Not long after, I was the Man of Honor
in my best friend’s wedding.
And I took her bouquet.

The second Heirbloom, first bouquet.
Another success.

After that,
I started asking friends for their flowers.
And I kept going.

For years, I held onto bouquets I hadn’t finished.
Some of them,
my friends have probably forgotten about.

But I haven’t.

Now, I’m going back to them.

Finishing them.

Refining the process.

Honoring what I started
before I knew what it would become.

What I Know Now

Flowers don’t last.
They’re not supposed to.
That’s part of what makes them matter.

Most preservation tries to hold them in place.
To stop time.

But that’s not what I do.

I take what’s left…
and let it become something new.
Something that carries the memory forward.

Not as it was,
but as it continues.

That first piece wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t clean.
It wasn’t planned.
But it was the beginning.

And I almost threw it away.