Sympathy flowers in Fort Myers

If you are sending flowers to a Fort Myers funeral, there is a good chance the address is on Colonial Boulevard. Two of the largest operations in Lee County sit on that road between US 41 and Metro Parkway: Harvey-Engelhardt Funeral and Cremation Services, one of the oldest names in the county, and Fort Myers Memorial Gardens, where a funeral home and a memorial park occupy the same grounds so a chapel service and a committal can happen without a procession going anywhere. That matters practically, not just geographically. Colonial is a fast six-lane arterial with direct access from both of the streets our florists sit on, which means a morning-of delivery to a chapel there is realistic rather than optimistic. It also means the piece you send may end up outdoors at a graveside an hour after the service ends, and that changes what should be in it. Further east, Hodges Funeral Home sits at Lee Memorial Park on State Road 82, the large county burial ground out toward Lehigh Acres; Gendron Funeral and Cremation Services serves the Fort Myers side as well. Across the Caloosahatchee, Coral Ridge Funeral Home and Cemetery is on Everest Parkway and Mullins Memorial is on Country Club Boulevard in Cape Coral.

A great many services here are held in a church rather than a chapel, and those have a stricter clock. Downtown, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church on Cleveland Avenue is the historic parish and the sanctuary where a large Fort Myers funeral Mass most often happens; the long-established Presbyterian and Methodist congregations sit a few blocks over near Second Street in the River District. Several of Lee County's Catholic parishes run Spanish-language Mass schedules, and if the funeral Mass is one of those the time on the family's notice may not be the time on the parish's regular bulletin, so confirm with the parish office. East of downtown in 33916, Dunbar's churches hold the funerals for the city's historically Black neighborhood, and the historic Fort Myers Cemetery on Michigan Avenue is the burial ground closest to them; services in that community are often followed by a repast at a hall, which is a second address worth asking about. Temple Beth El on Winkler Road and Chabad of Southwest Florida serve the county's Jewish community, where donations rather than flowers are the customary gesture and a plant sent to the house during the week of mourning is the appropriate exception. In every one of these buildings the rule is the same and it is not obvious: arrangements belong there before the doors open, not at the hour printed on the notice.

Then the thing that is genuinely different about sympathy work in Southwest Florida — the weather does the editing. A committal at Fort Myers Memorial Gardens or out at Lee Memorial Park in July or August happens in full sun in the low nineties with humidity that makes it feel worse, and a piece designed for a Midwestern chapel will not survive the walk from the hearse. Hydrangea wilts first and visibly, garden roses blow open and drop, and lilies opening in that heat will scent a small chapel foyer within an hour. What holds up is the tropical end of the cooler: anthurium, dendrobium and cymbidium orchids, carnation, chrysanthemum, gladiolus, ginger and heliconia, leatherleaf and tropical foliage that does not curl. That is why so much local sympathy work looks the way it does. It is also why services in the wet half of the year are scheduled in the morning: the afternoon thunderstorm is close to a daily event from June into September, and an outdoor graveside at three o'clock is a gamble. If the committal is outdoors, say so on the order and let the shop build to it. If the family is receiving people at a house afterward, a compact arrangement for a kitchen counter or a sideboard is the thing that actually gets lived with, because it stays in air conditioning.