Last month my husband gave me a bouquet of roses for my birthday. I do get these roses every birthday but it’s just this year that Pristine showed a keen interest to it. She was amazed at the whole bunch, 31 roses in all. The roses are kept in a very big vase in our living room and every morning she would ask me to carry her so she can take a closer look at the multi-colored blooms.

After three days, naturally, the flowers started to wilt. I removed the tie and cut the lower stem to make them take in water better. The little girl was with me all the time and even helped me open the garbage bin to throw the cut stems and leaves. A couple of days more, some of the roses died. I picked out the dead ones and retained the healthier batch.

“Mama, why do roses die?”,  came the obvious, expected question.

“All living things die, you know. Plants, animals, even humans like us.”, I answered.

“But they are so beautiful and yesterday they were not dead!”, she protested.

“Beautiful things should not die!”

My daughter at nearly 4, has no concept of life and death yet. We have no pets who were with us then died
and (knock on wood) we haven’t been to a wake or funeral of someone close to us.

“I don’t want to die, mama. I don’t want to be in the garbage can! (referring to the roses I threw)”

“Of course, honey, of course. No one’s going to die!”

I stopped doing what I was doing and hugged her as tight as I can as we continued to sort the flowers left.