Bringing flowers to mothers who need them most

By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 3:14 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 3:14 p.m.

Milt Sterman, 81, grabbed a cart from the kitchen at Creekside Convalescent Hospital in Santa Rosa and took it outside.

He loaded it with 15 little flower bouquets, each staked with a small, personalized card.

A few minutes later, at a hallway crossroads, Sterman, a long-term care ombudsman with the all-volunteer nonprofit Senior Advocacy Program, came across LaRue Rushakoff in her wheelchair. She was on the list that the ombudsman program and the senior care facilities compile every year of women whose families are far away, or gone now.

“Here's the greatest lady in the world,” Sterman said, leaning over to her.

She took the pink roses and baby's breath from him with a smile. “This is just marvelous to have young people caring so much,” said Rushakoff, a 99-year-old who still speaks with the twang of her native Texas. Her children have died by now.

Earlier, at the Steele Lane Community Center, a few dozen volunteers for the Senior Advocacy Program assembled bouquets in a fragrant room. Judie Johnson, 71, said she started taking part in the annual Mother's Day Flower Project six or seven years ago after a friend who did it for years died. “This is my way to remember Kit,” said Johnson, of Sebastopol. “It provides a little something to people who get lost in the shuffle when they don't have familiy nearby or who are not close to their families for some reason,” she said.

The event started about 20 years ago, said Susan Ziblatt, the nonprofit's executive director. A friend was missing her mother, who had died, and taking flowers to another mother seemed like a way to help that feeling. “We delivered one bouquet of flowers,” said Ziblatt, of Occidental, who said she's in her seventies.

This year 339 bouquets were taken to women in nursing homes from Cloverdale to Sonoma to Petaluma by volunteers including several EMTs from ambulance companies that donate their time.

“They don't have to be moms,” said Ziblatt. “They just have to be women who won't ...  go out to brunch on Sunday.”

The bouquets were assembled with care.  “The designer's dance,” said Ruth Thomas, 74, a retired florist and a board member of the Santa Rosa-based organization. Every year, said Thomas, a recipient questions the delivery, saying the flowers must not be intended for her. “That happens an awful lot, too much for our liking,” Thomas said.

Isabelle James, of Windsor, snipped some greens. It was her second year helping out in the project.
Last year, she said, she wasn't feeling so good one day after the delivery day. Then a lady who was delivered a bouquet called her. “I was really, really tired and I went to work. And when she called — ‘Oh, thank you so much' — I wasn't tired anymore,” James said.

Photographs by John Burgess / The Press Democrat