EAST LANSING – For more than 30 years the same customer walked into B/A Florist every February to place his order. Staff filled a vase with his wife’s favorite flower, a sweetness rose, their petals white with pink edges creating a stunning spiral of color around every bud. Each year the bouquet grew by another rose,one for every year of their marriage, and every year a single red rose was placed at the center of the arraignment, a token of the year of marriage that lay ahead. "I guess the way I see it is, she was truly the love of his life, and even though she’s not here in body she’s no further away in his heart," said Laurie Van Ark, owner of B/A Florist, about the anonymous donor who donated a large rose bouquet to another couple after his wife died. (Photo: Photo courtesy of B/A Florist) There’s nothing unusual about a couple marking years together with blossoms, said Laurie Van Ark, who owns the East Lansing flower shop her mother, Barbara Ann, founded 40 years ago. Florists hear their fair share of romantic stories, she said. This one, however, transcended loss to become a random act of kindness. ‘Still in my heart’ Last month the customer walked in to B/A Florist to order the bouquet staff had made countless times before. This time the flowers, 43 in honor of what would have been the couple’s 42nd year of marriage, plus one for the year ahead, wouldn’t be delivered to his wife. She died of pancreatic cancer, he told Van Ark. A bouquet of 43 roses B/A Florist delivered to East Lansing city employee Jennifer Shuster on Feb. 24 were paid for by an anonymous customer in honor of his late wife. For years he ordered the […]