(Original Message in English 1 of 3)
Friends, family, and everyone who cherishes Life in San Francisco. We are all connected in this World of flowers and love. We all hold Matthew’s words, images, and stories here as sacred.
I write this, the saddest entry of any I have ever typed. It is with immeasurable sorrow and regret that I have to tell you that, on July 5, 2008, Matthew passed from this world. Matthew is dead.
For all of you reading this, please know that this blog, this community, your comments, and your love have been one of the most important parts of Matthew’s life. I close my eyes and see him smile to receive so much love in each message you send him, in words, pictures, letters, and flowers. I see the joy with which he reads every one of your comments, sitting in the couch, with Chippy at home, on the balcony, or at the kitchen table. Your comments are always full of encouragement and understanding.
I can write no eulogy for Matthew that would compare to this complete online collection of writings, photos, flowers, art, love, caring, connections, comments, responses to Life in San Francisco. Entry after entry, Matthew gave his whole life to each one of us.
But that is not to say that the pages of this blog can begin to describe Mathew’s hopes, dreams and life. I think no single person can ever know the complex, magnificent, Flower Boy, born into a family of artists in Tokyo, 43 years ago.
I hear Matthew telling the story of how he learned to understand the beauty of nature and speak its language. How the whispering beauty of a new bud could bring such comfort to the world.
It is the late 1960s, and Matthew is a child in Tokyo. His grandfather has practiced medicine in this city since before the War. Trained overseas, he opens his young grandson’s eyes and heart to new cultures. He teaches Matthew an appreciation for the simple beauty of humanity.
As an adult, Matthew remembers his beloved grandfather’s beautiful garden. In that garden, the thing that most fascinates young Matthew is his grandfather’s Japanese maple tree.
The Japanese maple grows very slowly. Matthew loves to tell me how it does not grow more than an inch or two a year. Its subtle changes are hardly noticeable to any but the most observant. Two dedicated observers are Matthew and his grandfather.
While all of Japan celebrates the dramatic and spectacular reds and fiery oranges that herald the coming of autumn, Matthew and his grandfather meditate on a single tree and find hope and meaning contained in a single new shoot that transforms the green of possibility to the burgundy woodiness of stability.
For Matthew, this lesson in Shinto stays with him as an adult. It is with him when he cries in sympathy for the beautiful trees humans so carelessly cut down. Hold a kitten, a passionflower’s bud, or a fragile peppercorn, in his delicate and deliberate hands, and be with him and smile.
As a floral designer, Matthew selects flowers that unfold and burst into life for days and days after an arrangement has left his hands. As an artist, he considers the stems that will grow and elongate in the vase over time. As a human, he is thankful for the happiness yet to bloom in a new creation. He is thankful for the happiness these subtle changes in his flowers will bring to everyone who experiences them. Even those people who only experience his arrangements in brief glimpses will be touched by the unseen, evolving, hidden message of love and hope.
I recall a recent conversation with a guard at 1999 Harrison in Oakland, the site of one of Matthew’s weekly displays. The guard is probably not a high school graduate. He has grown up in an urban environment, surrounded by excessive concrete and precious little nature. Yet, on my weekly trips, the guard always greets me. He points out new buds, a new bend in a stem, a perfectly-drooping leaf. “I swear this wasn’t here yesterday,” he exclaims, pointing, smiling.
“I sit with this arrangement every day, from Monday through Friday, and still, when Friday comes and I say goodbye to it, I haven’t seen all there is to see. How does he do it?”
How does he do it? It is the mid-nineties, and Matthew and his long-term partner, Dale, are relocating from Tokyo to San Francisco. After a successful career in fashion and business, Matthew senses that it is time for something new. Maybe, he thinks, there is something new he can learn that will respect his grandfather’s lessons in the garden.
In his heart, he knows what his new life is. It is flowers.
He picks up a flower, and it speaks directly to his heart. The language of flowers.
The magic of talking to flowers. It is listening. Believing in their whispers, and delighting in their desire to bloom fully in this world. Believing in what the flowers want to do, how they want to grow, what they want to say.
And this blog is full of Matthew’s flowers. Flowers for kings and queens. Singers, businesses, churches, schoolchildren, schoolteachers, nurses, your neighbors and mine. Our weddings, our Bar Mitzvahs, our proms and coming out parties. Baby showers and funerals. Matthew himself calculated that, with his flowers alone, he had made well over a million people happy.
Join me in hoping that the chorus of joy he has brought to life is a new shoot, a subtle green twig, barely noticeable on the fragile tree of humanity. Pray with Matthew and me that this fragile twig turns into solid wood, a branch of love and beauty that we can all climb on, stand on, and swing from. A branch big enough to bear the weight of the world. The love of the world.
And Matthew experience human love fully in his life. Please be with me as he meets a new boy, one who paints flowers with water. Together they talk to the flowers, and together they listen for the answers. And the flowers do answer and give these lucky boys an endlessly blooming field of possibilities.
That boy is me. In the presence of flowers, in the garden, in the street, in Montclair Florist, in liquid color, Matthew and Kevin find a language that bridges our hearts.
We join the flower’s silent singing in Dolores Park, along Noe St., at Ocean Beach and Black Sands Beach. We never cease to be humbled by each flower we pass by. We stop to wonder at a Heliconia in Hawaii, at a Protea in the Castro, and the first plum blossoms of Lake Merritt.
The verse of the flowers is a song, and the song is sung in harmony by two hopeful souls, in love, conscious of all the hope and light in the world together.
But, outside the garden, flowers are torn apart in the wind. Run over by cars. Trees are cut down. Fields are dug up to make room for the fences that divide people, separate nations. Love, families change. The language of hurried discussions, and “you should,” and argumentative voices blots our ears and renders us incapable of hearing the flowers’ silence.
There is nothing I can give you to mitigate the enormous and awesome cry of your sorrow, anger, and confusion. How could this happen? How could something so beautiful go wrong? What kind of monster could have hijacked the flowers and haunted the garden, gnawing away at the Flower Boy we all love so much? Who we turn to in our times of need? How on Earth could so much happiness turn to death?
My hope, and possibly Matthew’s too, is that everyone here can maintain some of the joy and happiness, some of the love, some of the silence and the awe of this connection we all share. That Matthew’s lessons, Matthew’s passion, Matthew’s flowers can live on in all our hearts. That Matthew’s dreams can bloom again and again, growing in all of our kitchens, gardens, and windowsills, and forever create love in the world, and respect for Matthew’s memory.
Please, wish, pray, hope with me that this tiny shoot of Matthew’s becomes a firm and solid branch.
- Kevin Woodson
Friends, family, and everyone who cherishes Life in San Francisco. We are all connected in this World of flowers and love. We all hold Matthew’s words, images, and stories here as sacred.
I write this, the saddest entry of any I have ever typed. It is with immeasurable sorrow and regret that I have to tell you that, on July 5, 2008, Matthew passed from this world. Matthew is dead.
For all of you reading this, please know that this blog, this community, your comments, and your love have been one of the most important parts of Matthew’s life. I close my eyes and see him smile to receive so much love in each message you send him, in words, pictures, letters, and flowers. I see the joy with which he reads every one of your comments, sitting in the couch, with Chippy at home, on the balcony, or at the kitchen table. Your comments are always full of encouragement and understanding.
I can write no eulogy for Matthew that would compare to this complete online collection of writings, photos, flowers, art, love, caring, connections, comments, responses to Life in San Francisco. Entry after entry, Matthew gave his whole life to each one of us.
But that is not to say that the pages of this blog can begin to describe Mathew’s hopes, dreams and life. I think no single person can ever know the complex, magnificent, Flower Boy, born into a family of artists in Tokyo, 43 years ago.
I hear Matthew telling the story of how he learned to understand the beauty of nature and speak its language. How the whispering beauty of a new bud could bring such comfort to the world.
It is the late 1960s, and Matthew is a child in Tokyo. His grandfather has practiced medicine in this city since before the War. Trained overseas, he opens his young grandson’s eyes and heart to new cultures. He teaches Matthew an appreciation for the simple beauty of humanity.
As an adult, Matthew remembers his beloved grandfather’s beautiful garden. In that garden, the thing that most fascinates young Matthew is his grandfather’s Japanese maple tree.
The Japanese maple grows very slowly. Matthew loves to tell me how it does not grow more than an inch or two a year. Its subtle changes are hardly noticeable to any but the most observant. Two dedicated observers are Matthew and his grandfather.
While all of Japan celebrates the dramatic and spectacular reds and fiery oranges that herald the coming of autumn, Matthew and his grandfather meditate on a single tree and find hope and meaning contained in a single new shoot that transforms the green of possibility to the burgundy woodiness of stability.
For Matthew, this lesson in Shinto stays with him as an adult. It is with him when he cries in sympathy for the beautiful trees humans so carelessly cut down. Hold a kitten, a passionflower’s bud, or a fragile peppercorn, in his delicate and deliberate hands, and be with him and smile.
As a floral designer, Matthew selects flowers that unfold and burst into life for days and days after an arrangement has left his hands. As an artist, he considers the stems that will grow and elongate in the vase over time. As a human, he is thankful for the happiness yet to bloom in a new creation. He is thankful for the happiness these subtle changes in his flowers will bring to everyone who experiences them. Even those people who only experience his arrangements in brief glimpses will be touched by the unseen, evolving, hidden message of love and hope.
I recall a recent conversation with a guard at 1999 Harrison in Oakland, the site of one of Matthew’s weekly displays. The guard is probably not a high school graduate. He has grown up in an urban environment, surrounded by excessive concrete and precious little nature. Yet, on my weekly trips, the guard always greets me. He points out new buds, a new bend in a stem, a perfectly-drooping leaf. “I swear this wasn’t here yesterday,” he exclaims, pointing, smiling.
“I sit with this arrangement every day, from Monday through Friday, and still, when Friday comes and I say goodbye to it, I haven’t seen all there is to see. How does he do it?”
How does he do it? It is the mid-nineties, and Matthew and his long-term partner, Dale, are relocating from Tokyo to San Francisco. After a successful career in fashion and business, Matthew senses that it is time for something new. Maybe, he thinks, there is something new he can learn that will respect his grandfather’s lessons in the garden.
In his heart, he knows what his new life is. It is flowers.
He picks up a flower, and it speaks directly to his heart. The language of flowers.
The magic of talking to flowers. It is listening. Believing in their whispers, and delighting in their desire to bloom fully in this world. Believing in what the flowers want to do, how they want to grow, what they want to say.
And this blog is full of Matthew’s flowers. Flowers for kings and queens. Singers, businesses, churches, schoolchildren, schoolteachers, nurses, your neighbors and mine. Our weddings, our Bar Mitzvahs, our proms and coming out parties. Baby showers and funerals. Matthew himself calculated that, with his flowers alone, he had made well over a million people happy.
Join me in hoping that the chorus of joy he has brought to life is a new shoot, a subtle green twig, barely noticeable on the fragile tree of humanity. Pray with Matthew and me that this fragile twig turns into solid wood, a branch of love and beauty that we can all climb on, stand on, and swing from. A branch big enough to bear the weight of the world. The love of the world.
And Matthew experience human love fully in his life. Please be with me as he meets a new boy, one who paints flowers with water. Together they talk to the flowers, and together they listen for the answers. And the flowers do answer and give these lucky boys an endlessly blooming field of possibilities.
That boy is me. In the presence of flowers, in the garden, in the street, in Montclair Florist, in liquid color, Matthew and Kevin find a language that bridges our hearts.
We join the flower’s silent singing in Dolores Park, along Noe St., at Ocean Beach and Black Sands Beach. We never cease to be humbled by each flower we pass by. We stop to wonder at a Heliconia in Hawaii, at a Protea in the Castro, and the first plum blossoms of Lake Merritt.
The verse of the flowers is a song, and the song is sung in harmony by two hopeful souls, in love, conscious of all the hope and light in the world together.
But, outside the garden, flowers are torn apart in the wind. Run over by cars. Trees are cut down. Fields are dug up to make room for the fences that divide people, separate nations. Love, families change. The language of hurried discussions, and “you should,” and argumentative voices blots our ears and renders us incapable of hearing the flowers’ silence.
There is nothing I can give you to mitigate the enormous and awesome cry of your sorrow, anger, and confusion. How could this happen? How could something so beautiful go wrong? What kind of monster could have hijacked the flowers and haunted the garden, gnawing away at the Flower Boy we all love so much? Who we turn to in our times of need? How on Earth could so much happiness turn to death?
My hope, and possibly Matthew’s too, is that everyone here can maintain some of the joy and happiness, some of the love, some of the silence and the awe of this connection we all share. That Matthew’s lessons, Matthew’s passion, Matthew’s flowers can live on in all our hearts. That Matthew’s dreams can bloom again and again, growing in all of our kitchens, gardens, and windowsills, and forever create love in the world, and respect for Matthew’s memory.
Please, wish, pray, hope with me that this tiny shoot of Matthew’s becomes a firm and solid branch.
- Kevin Woodson
