The funeral flowers arrived with a birthday balloon

Dear Delyara, I arrange flowers for funerals. Today, a delivery driver mixed two orders and brought us white lilies tied to a bright balloon that said “Happy 5th Birthday!” The family of the deceased had already arrived. The dead woman was eighty-nine. Her great-granddaughter saw the balloon and asked whether heaven had birthdays. Her mother tried to pull her away, embarrassed, but the child kept holding the string. I offered to remove it. The dead woman’s son said no. He told us his mother had loved birthdays and lied about her age for most of her life. So the balloon remained beside the coffin, bobbing above the lilies while people spoke about her long marriage, terrible singing voice, and habit of stealing sugar packets from restaurants. The room looked wrong and somehow more honest. Death had been decorated with one accidental piece of childhood. After everyone left, I found the balloon pressed against the ceiling. Today was also my birthday. Nobody at work knew. I untied it, carried it to the parking lot, and let the wind take it. For a few seconds, “Happy 5th Birthday” floated above the funeral home, and I felt strangely included in somebody else’s mistake.