It's funny how you forget.

Habibi just text messaged me, "Is red ceder mulch safe for gardenias?"

Suddenly it all came back to me, how he would carefully bring me a single voluptuously scented blossom each spring from the gardenia he carefully pampered and tended on his balcony.

Sigh.

Those were tender moments.

Scents linger in our brains. I can smell those blossoms as intensely now as if it were back then, with the blossom carefully cupped in his hand to my nose. I breathing in deeply both the fragrance and the love of the gesture.