Petunia.(Kevin Hughes) I watched the little girl picking flowers. She had her back to me, unaware that she was bring such a big smile to my face. I was remembering my own childhood in the Hills of West Virginia, where my Mother would take all five of us children out to the Holler to pick flowers and herbs. I could smell the heather, the soft wet smell of dew, and hear the giggles as my Sisters and my other brother raced through wildflower that came up to our waists. My smile grew warmer.

Until…

She turned.

*****

I don’t know why I didn’t just walk away. I guess I was stunned by what I saw. Luckily, my smile stayed frozen on my face, letting none of the shock, surprise, or disbelief show. The little girl only saw my warm smile leftover from my flashback to my own carefree childhood. She gave me a dazzling smile that made her look even more like a flower in bloom. And that was a good thing.

Why?

Because it made my smile real again. I couldn’t hide the delight from reaching my eyes. She turned several shades of blue in a spate of shyness.

Yes.

Blue.

It was a blush, that was certain. No different than how either you or I would respond to embarrassment, or shyness. (without conscious thought) Except we would blush some shade of red, or pink.

Not blue.

Her basket was filled with flowers of all kinds. She was so tiny that her basket scraped the ground when she held the handle at the end of her short arms. She was cute as the proverbial button. Her smile broke out into a grin. My first thought was I just watched a flower bloom …for that is what it looked like to me.
My mind was overcome with cuteness. Enough so that the flowers in her basket didn’t make it through to my conscious mind for another few seconds.

You see, in that basket were an array of flowers that would make a Professional Florist drool with colored potential. Every shade, hue, color imaginable for a flower was in that basket. There were even a few unimaginable…like the dark black petunias that looked like living onyx…or the Orchids colored like trapped rainbows.

That is when it dawned on me. The collection of flowers in that basket was not possible. Orchids don’t grow on the hillsides of West Virginia, especially in mountain valleys above the tree line. Orchids need hot and humid places to grow, like a jungle or a Greenhouse. Plus there were other flowers that aren’t native to the hollers of West Virginia…or were out of season.

Tulips, roses, daisies, daffodils, Iris, camellia, dahlias, plumeria, Lily of the Valley, lotus…the list was endless. There was even a Bird of Paradise gaggle bunched up in her basket. I bet you could name flowers by alphabetical order if you stared into her basket long enough. I mean, just with the “B’s” I discovered in her basket: Baby’s Breath, Begonias, Black Eyed Susans, Bluebell, Buttercups, Blue Star Flowers, Ball Cactus, Balloon Flowers, Bush Morning Glory buds, Bay Laurel…and Violets sprinkled liberally throughout them all.

It was impossible. Some of those flowers don’t even grow on our Continent. Some are so rare they can only be found in locations where Civilization hasn’t encroached on Nature. Some of the flowers in that basket were so rare that even Nature had a hard time finding where they lived. The smell of Night Blooming Jasmine, and Lavender melded like some kind of olfactory symphony with the other flowers like Roses and Begonias to burst into your mind in a slew of memories and joy.

Even the more pungent flowers, like the orchid and trumpet flowers that are meat eaters…their smell seemed to fit into the symphony of scents like the Timpani and Triangle fit into a musical symphony…never interrupting the more sweet sounds or smells.

I was in sort of a daze when she motioned me over with a gentle wave of her hand. A hand colored in shades from pink to purple, with occasional splashes of bright yellow, or muted orange. What white was on her skin wasn’t the white of a Northern European Heritage, it was the White of a Lily, Rhododendron, or Hyacinth, surrounded by a palette of pastels.

On her…it looked…normal.

I felt no threat. I felt no fear.

So I went over to her.

And then….

*****

“Mister, would you like to pick some flowers with me?”

I smiled down and put out my hand for her to tug me over to a nearby patch of brightly colored flowers. She took my ordinary colored hand in her Foliage in Vermont in the Fall colored hand…and she towed me with little kid in a hurry to share some treasure or show me something that caught her interests pace.

I stumbled along as gracefully as I could…and finally caught up to my wits.

“What is your name?”

“Petunia!”

Came back to me on the wind as she yelled it over her shoulder.

“Of course it is.” I smiled bigger.

She giggled.

When we got to the bright patch of flowers she pointed at a row of flowers that seemed to flow from one color to another. Purple, red, black, white, blue (several shades of blue…and blue is a rather rare color for a flower) white and some tangerine colored bulbs. They were all Petunias!

“Those are mine!”

She laughed at her own pride. I laughed too.

“What kind of flowers do you like?”

She asked me.

For just a minute…my face fell. She caught my look, stopped, set her basket down and took both my hands in hers.

“What flower did you just think of? The one that made you sad?”

I don’t know why I blurted it out to a five year old child (at least I thought she couldn’t be much older than that)…but I did.

“A rose. More pink than red. And soft as velvet.”

A tear formed on my cheek and fell. The little girl caught it on the end of her finger…looked at it by holding it up to the sun. She stared at if for a long moment.

Then she said something amazing.

“That’s not a sad flower. That is a Lost Love with good memories flower. Come….I will show you.”

She took my hand and pulled me through my grief down the path of curiosity.

She took me to a small part of the meadow. A part that had no trees, no shade, and plenty of moisture from a little brook that burbled and bubbled over pebbles on its way downhill.

I saw roses. Hundreds of them. Thousands. She waded through them pushing some stems taller than her out of her way with a swaying motion…almost like the flowers acknowledged she was not to be poked or prodded by thorns. The parted like curtains…while I traipsed behind her, snagging my pants on the occasional thorn to two. Finally she stopped in a bed of roses.

“Here…pick these. I will help.”

I looked around. Stunned into submission. Around me were roses…most some shade of pink…some a pastel light shade…others tiptoeing uncertainly toward red. They were like a collage of scented bits of my time with Rose. My Rose. Rosemary. My true love until she was planted in the ground that was torn open like a wound. I had put a rose on her casket just before her casket was buried in dirt.

And then I fell to my knees and cried the aching tears of unimaginable loss.

That was years ago…almost a decade now. And yet, here I am, standing in a sea of Roses that would have delighted my Rose. I dropped to my knees. The little girl came over and put her hand on my shoulder. She handed me a Rose. A bright pink Rose.

“Smell it.”

Was her soft command.

I did.

I closed my eyes. I felt a bigger, much stronger hand on my other shoulder. I looked up.

Have you ever been so shocked that you couldn’t breathe?

Have you ever heard someone say: “I couldn’t breathe.” Or: “It took my breath away!”

Well, let me tell you…I know what they meant. What they felt.

What I didn’t know, was what it meant.

Because that hand belonged to my Rose.

My breath caught in my throat…for the last time.

I was dead.

*****

I stood up to embrace my Rose.

She leaned back and looked deep into my eyes. Hers were twinkling like those dark velvet sprinkled with diamonds glitter you see at the top of mountains when you look up at the night sky. She took one hand and gently tweaked my nose like she used to when she was alive. It was a gesture of hers reserved only for me…more intimate than any other kind of physical contact. It made me shiver with joy.

“Took you long enough.”

“What did?”

I was honestly confused, overwhelmed, and bewildered. In spite of all that…I didn’t want the moment to end. It didn’t. It never will.

“To join me, Silly.”

She tweaked my nose again.

Petunia was shining with glee just a few steps away. She looked up at my Rose.

“Come on, bring him along…lets show him the Violets!”

Rose pulled me (for my feet seemed to be hesitant to move for fear of her walking away) with a soft command uttered over her shoulder to me:

“Come on Dan, Petunia loves to show off her flowers. And she will train you…like she did me…to grow the most beautiful flowers. You’ll see.”

I looked back at the meadow we were leaving.

I saw a body there. It looked comfortable laying face down. It was dressed in the exact clothes I was wearing when I met Petunia and her flower basket. The body just lay there in the grass…unmoving. It wasn’t breathing.

Neither was I , I realized. Then it dawned on m.

I didn’t have to breathe.

I was dead.

I was in the Garden.

Petunia’s voice, and Roses grip propelled me further into the garden…and my future.

Someone would find the body…but I wouldn’t care.

I had flowers to plant.

Rose and Petunia would help me.

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