for Kathy, and David, and their yet-to-be munchkin…

 

One day, the first flower appeared on the Earth (perhaps the first in the entire Universe).

It was a mutation, of course. In today’s parlance, we would call it a misfit, an oddball; an outcast.

Mother Nature had grown plants before, short and tall, green, with flowing leaves of various sizes. But this one had a genetic “tic”, and some of its cells morphed into something new. A bud formed, and the cells took on color, a color different from the green of its stem and leaves.

The rain and sunshine fed it and the cells in the bud filled with color and grew and grew and grew until there were so many of them the gentle skin of the bud burst and the petals of the world’s first flower faned out into the air and caught the glint of the sun.

There was no one around. There were not yet animals of any kind on the planet. There was life, but it was plant life, and sea weeds, and moss. Humans were not even yet a possibility.

But there it was, the first flower. And though no one was watching it, though no one was around to applaud its arrival, though no human was there to water it, stroke its soft petals, pluck it, put it in a vase, place it in a lover’s hand, or lay it upon a loved one’s grave, there stood the first flower blooming, showing its new-found colors to the whole universe, soaking up the sun, drinking in the rain, and dancing in the wind.