Flowers

Flowers. Your daughter loves them, Laura said, setting our one-year old down in the grass next to the patio. Arial immediately grabbed a dandelion and jammed it in her mouth happily gumming it to death. Laughing, my wife, gently pulled the slimy thing out, saying she also liked petunias, as our little girl grabbed for one from a nearby planter. I reached for her and missed as she swallowed it whole.

            Then suddenly she was everywhere, crawling here and there, stuffing flowers in her mouth non-stop, a whirling dervish of floral mastication. It was impossible to try to control her. Frustrated, I was about ready to put a halt to the whole thing and take her inside when suddenly she stopped and looked at me, her eyes twinkling in the sunlight. She smiled a flowery smile as she reached out her little hand and offered me a recently plucked yellow daisy. Then she called me Daddy. My heart melted as I took it from her, while, giggling, she put one in her mouth. I didn't have to think. I popped mine in and ate it. It tasted like a burst of pure joy.