To make a flower live.

It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to make a flower live. To keep it from dying. The steps are simple. Water, but not to much, about two to three times a week. Keep it in sunlight, also a moderate amount. Too much or not enough of anything, especially the things that keep us alive, can end up terrible. However, a flower is nice and simple. Water and food.

Then why, even with the perfect amount of water a food, is my flower, sitting in my window sill, dry, wilted, and losing it's beautiful ruffily orange petals. Why is the stem of my marigold dark instead of bright. I thought it was simple to make a flower live.

Of course is starts off easy. Everything is new and exciting. A couple days into the planting a small stem starts to pop out. Slowly, yet so quickly, a seed becomes a flower. Thriving in the sunlight, growing into an extravagant beauty. A flower has not a care in the world, but to sit in the sunlight.

But soon, somehow, my flower starts to change. instead of facing the sun, my marigold starts to drop. Head facing away from the sun, as if hiding from its warmth. The water that once fueled my flower soon becomes nothing more than discomfort.

Slowly but surly, my flower starts to die. Now everyone that walks buy my flower tells me how to fix it: when to water, how long to sit in the sun, what pot it should go in, what soil to use. After nothing works, everyone walks by my flower as if it will crumple with a single foot step. It seems possible that it might. Then, out of the blue, people stop telling me how to save my flower. They stop walking by at all. As if it is already a lost cause.

So I sit in front of my flower, and a first I cry. However, I don't cry about the fact that my flower is dying. I cry because everyone believes it has. No one believes I can make a flower live. And without a beautiful flower for others to see, why would anyone want to come by anyway? Nothing but petals on the flower.

Soon all I can do is yell. I scream at my flower, for surely it is the flowers fault. I did everything I possibly could to help my flower, and it couldn't help me at all. Not even this once. Eventually I'm so angry that I push the pot and my flower goes flying out the window. The pot shatters and the dirt and flower are in a pile on the ground.

I suddenly realize what I've done. But now there's nothing I can do to undo it. I guess it is simple in the end. I simply cannot make a flower live. I run outside and all there is left to do is lay on the ground next to my dying flower. I tell my flower that I am sorry. That I wish I could have done more. And I lay there as it dies.

Who knows how long I laid there, but when my eyes open I do not see what I expect to see. On the floor, next to me, are two tiny stems sticking out of the soil that lay on the ground. Two flowers that came from one. And soon the two flowers turn into many many more. Until, with a little more soil, and a lot more love, I have an entire garden a marigolds smiling at me.

Everyone eventually hears about the girl with not only one flower, but a whole garden. And everyone asks me how I did it. But my garden is my own. And now only a few get to see it, because I've learned a few things along the way. One of them being that my flowers don't need all those suggestions and footsteps, just a few kind people some sun and some water.

When people ask me what it took to make my flower live, I tell them I couldn't make it live. I just had to let it.