I Gave my Soul to a Flower

I shall always revel in the calmness of the moments I spend caressing my flowers with all my senses. To pause from my daily responsibilities while savoring the colors, textures, and the gentle moment of natures friends brings such joy to my heart that tears are often created from the intense pleasure I feel thoughout my being.

I sometimes recall the moment when the gods of flowers tested my oneness with them. I was four years old and my cousin and I were left for the day in my aunt's care. Seated on the steps of my Aunt Emma's back porch next to my cousin I surveyed her garden of peonies, roses and lilies, each one demanding my attention in a display of fragrance and color. As my aunt leaned over me her shadow cast a brief moment of coolness to the hot July afternoon. She placed a bright yellow rose in my hand and another in my cousins hand.

I will never forget pressing my face into the center of the flower and breathing the thick fragrance of ice tea. As I felt its softness against my check I glanced toward my cousin who was vigorously and methodically pulling the petals from his rose.

"Stop, You're killing it!" I shouted. My own voice seemed to come from someone else. My rage frightened me as tears came to my eyes. I wrenched the rose from my cousin's hand and ran toward the far side of the garden. There in a crouching pose, with my bare knees tucked under my chin, I carefully surveyed the damage. Bringing the disfigured rose to my lips I kissed it "to make it better." I began to gently infold it with my own immaculate pink rose for the comfort of a healing caress it would bring to us both.

I have often said, to those closest to me, that I have but one request. That when it is time for my spirit to be separated from my body that I be taken into my garden. For it is there that I shall be welcomed with jubilant celebration and gently guided along a peaceful path toward natures own kingdom of the sun and other the stars. There, once again, I will hold the rose in my hands only this time I will see eternity.


--Stuart Wisong