Holly Middleton is rarely seen without a few dozen roses under her arm. For three months, she’s carried around hundreds of flowers per week in the hopes of trading them for a smile.
“This is just part of my therapy,” she said. “This is part of my healing.”
Flowers have always been special to Holly. They were special to her daughter, Scarlett, too. The 5-year-old was cute and girly. She got sick in early-July with a mysterious illness.
“We came home from Disney Springs and the following evening she threw up a little and had a fever,” Holly wrote on the website she created to share her daughter’s story.
“On day two of having an upset stomach and fever, I took her to her doctor," Holly explained. "She was so lethargic I carried her into his office. We were sent home with Zofran and were told it is just a stomach virus. Twenty hours later she was dead.”
For hours, the doctors at the hospital tried unsuccessfully to revive Scarlett. The sudden loss rocked the family. They’d lost their “little sunshine."
“God is helping me,” said Holly, who is also a mother to three other children. “God has continued to bless us after Scarlett has passed. We are receiving blessing after blessing. It’s, quite frankly, unbelievable that God hasn’t left us through this sorrow and this despair.”
PHOTOS: Woman hands out flowers in memory of her daughter
She decided she needed to start a charity to bring more smiles like Scarlett’s into the world. She was a little girl who touched everyone she met in a positive way. Holly decided to hand out flowers to strangers, hoping for smiles in return, was the perfect way to honor Scarlett’s memory.
“That is so sweet,” said a woman named Norma as Holly presented her a purple rose Friday morning outside The Fountains assisted living home in South Pasadena. “There are a lot of sweet people out there.”
For about an hour, Holly slipped roses with pink ribbons on them into door handles of parked cars. A note with the name of her charity, Scarlett’s Sunshine, was attached to each stem. The name of the website is also there and the social media hashtag #ScarlettsSunshine. Holly hands out 250 per week, along with 20 vases per week, to nursing homes and hospitals. She has received countless emails from people who were uplifted by the surprise flower.
“It was just originally an attempt to spread joy and kindness," Holly said. "They say grief is love that has no place to go. I feel like this is part of my grieving process.”
Holly’s 3-year-old, Magnolia, decided she’d interrupt Scarlett’s funeral by handing out flowers to everyone in attendance. It was a beautiful foreshadowing of her mom’s upcoming mission to deliver smiles to strangers.
Holly plans to do this as long as she can afford it. She hopes to collect donation money to help pay for the hundreds of flowers she gives away each month. Three months in, hers is a mission she doesn’t want to see stop.
“I’d love if I could be known as that crazy lady with the flower bag, and my children could do the same,” she said.
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