Rebirth of flowers

"Look at that..." her hand outstretched almost too eagerly and my eyes followed, "it's - it's a - what's the word?"

She was right to ask. In all her life she'd never gazed upon anything like it before, aside from drawings and old books. Since those days, many years ago, I never thought I'd see another one ever again. My heart fluttered with excitement, curiousity, and longing to run and grab it from the ground and breathe in all its aroma and essence. I looked at the child and crouched. Eye to eye with her now I pulled her in and pointed to the tiny thing in front of us. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

"That, my dear child, is a flower." Her eyes widened as she lit up like fireworks and danced in place. Repeating the word over and over to herself in an excited squeal.

"Flower! A flower! A flower!" She shrieked. I could have joined her I was so giddy, but I kept my composure, letting her approach if only she promised not to touch. She eagerly agreed, running, no, skipping to it's spot a few feet away.

I still couldn't believe my eyes. With all my heart I wanted and needed it to be real. It had to be. The leaves, the stem, the little circle of green grass at its base. It all had to be real. As she knelt over the flower, I admired her will power and grinned at her, hands clasped tightly at her back. Needing to physically restrain herself from touching it. I knew it was going to be one of the hardest things she'd ever have to do.

I thank god she missed the End. The downfall of our world. The beginning of a winter that never ended. A cold that kept getting colder until the whole world it seemed, would never see a spring again. I remember the day it began to snow. A little bit at first and then more. Days went by with the snow showing no signs of slowing, it snowed for months. Until it was too cold to snow anymore. In the following months, the temperature hit 54⁰ below zero here on Vancouver Island. A few more and it was 70⁰ below. That's when the power shut off, and the sounds of people scrambling for supplies began. Soon there was nothing left but empty, frozen stores. Frozen cars and streets and houses. Where the snow wasn't so deep, or the icy wind had blown it away, in some places you could see the frozen bodies, still in form struggling against the frigid elements, incased in ice so clear and so thick no one could gather them and give them a proper burial. People had tried walking to warmer places, even though no one knew of any that existed anymore. Years of struggling, fighting, and clawing for warmth and food followed, the fall of humanity. My child was born thirteen years into the eternal winter, and today she would finally start living. Both of us would.

The land around us was still blanketed by ice and snow but the sun seemed to shine a little warmer, a little brighter today. It warmed my cold, frozen bones. It tightened my malnourished and wrinkled skin, and it lifted the weight of the apocalypse off of my shoulders almost entirely. Humankind knew what it was doing back then, many years ago. They knew the direction we were heading was straight for global tragedy. I still get angry when I think about it. How we did this to our home. We polluted our air, our water, our earth, until it couldn't take anymore, and we just kept abusing it. We pushed the ozone layer to it's breaking point and kept pushing.

Now, we're here. Ten minutes ago things were so dim, so bleak and lacking hope. Now, as this child scratches around in the snow surrounding the first spring flower in decades, I don't feel so sad. I feel something big is about to happen. Something warm and new. And this time my daughter will see it. Hope. Perhaps a green world. It sets my heart on fire to know she might see the world something as it was once before. Before we humans treated it like a garbage can. To hope that one day she will feel the grass between her toes and dig in the dirt until there's so much under her fingernails she'll have to come inside and wash under the tap in warm water... or she could use the hose outside… splash and dance in cool droplets sparkling in the warm light, and lay in the grass drying in the blazing sun. Her pale face would turn pink, and of course she'd be sunburned, but it would be her first sunburn, and she would soak up the rays and grow. Like this small flower. This is where her life will begin, She will blossom with the buds of the New Spring.

I hear a gasp that breaks my daze. The smile still clinging to my face. I'm unable to wipe it away.

"What is it dear child?" I almost expect to see she has broken the flower. Her tiny hands just couldn't stay behind her back any longer and she only wanted to smell it, but what I see is green. Her hands still knotted tightly behind her back, her eyes were locked on something a few feet away, something green. My feet crunched along the half frozen ground until I stood beside her. My eyes scanned the earth at our feet as the sun reflected off of the dew covered leaves. The sight was almost too bright to behold. Surreal and amazing. I knew she felt it too. I reached my hand out and moved sticks from atop a cluster of tiny growths.

"Are those… more flowers?" Her eyes like saucers, her smile wide. The bliss I felt looking at her discovering things was overwhelming. I fought the tears that stung my nose. 'This is only the beginning' I thought happily. I knew in my heart I'd feel this over and over as each new day brought us back more and more of what the old world used to be. I'd get to light up her face over and over again as I told her everything there was to know about spring.

"Yes, soon there will be whole fields of flowers, grass as tall as you and I, and sun so warm it will darken your skin and turn the snow into running rivers… maybe one day, we will even see animals… then again, maybe not. This spring may not be like any of the springs I knew, this will be all your own. You can teach your children of your very first spring, and the past springs of your father. It may seem small now, but just you wait… everything is about to change… you're going to love spring".