The Flowers No Longer Bloom for Me

I am in the garden of my childhood.

Everything seems so beautiful.

I remember how happy I was with every little flower bud coming out of the frozen ground and how, sometimes, I would gently move the soil beside it, trying to help it come out more easily. That was how I imagined it: like a chick inside an egg, and if I helped it a little, it would bloom sooner and make more beautiful flowers, for me. Why did I imagine that the flowers in my garden were blooming for me? Even now, I still like to believe the same thing, that the flowers in my apartment bloom for me. Sometimes they bloom exactly on my birthday, and that makes this beautiful illusion feel even stronger.

This garden with flowering trees, daffodils, tulips, lilies of the valley, hyacinths, and lilies no longer blooms for me. I realize that I was only an observer. The mother of this garden is somewhere in a small room, on a hard bed, with a book in her hand and with a body that only knows how to endure. This year, she did not see the flowers in the garden.

In the end, our body can turn into a prison.

I look at the flowers. Some have faded and dried, while others are only now beginning to bloom. It is such a beautiful cycle, where some take the place of others and keep alive the illusion of a place that is always in bloom. I pick a few flowers and, for a moment, memories stop me — memories of being taught not to destroy the garden, but to protect it like an altar. An altar that had a mother of its own, the one who weeded it and watered it, while I... I imagined that the flowers were blooming for me, and I was happy. She watered this small happiness that has stayed with me forever. What a beautiful illusion...

I gather a bouquet from the abundance of a garden full of color and fragrance and bring it into a cold room, among medicines, teas, and books.

— Why did you pick the flowers?

— I brought them here so you could see them. I thought they were staying in the garden for nothing and that, in a few days, they would dry out. You could not go into the garden, so I brought the garden to your bedside.

— You know, I love nature. I feel sorry for them.

— Yes, I know. But there are so many of them... and they bloomed for you. You planted them, you took care of them. You are their mother.

— Thank you...