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Firefox

Paper Flowers


I was ten years old when my mother told me that my grandmother had cancer and was very ill. Though I really didn't understand what having cancer meant, I knew that it was not a good thing. She started chemotherapy and spent most of her time in bed. My mother and I spent hours and hours at her house, reading to her and sitting by her side. She was so miserable being bedridden and longed to be outside planting flowers and working in her garden. I remember how she used to stare out the windows with a faraway look in her eyes. She'd watch the butterflies flutter past her window and she'd sigh. She barely had the strength to sit up in her bed.

At school one day, our teacher told us that we'd be making paper flowers for our weekly craft. As soon as she showed us what they could look like, I got a wonderful idea. I wanted to cover my grandmother's room with bright paper flowers and make her an indoor garden. I told my teacher this, and she mentioned it to my classmates. All of the kids wanted to help and volunteered to give their paper flowers to me to decorate her room. I was overjoyed and I knew that my mother would think it was a brilliant idea. After an hour, I had almost fifty paper flowers to take to her.

That afternoon, I dashed off of the bus, delicately holding a shoebox of all of the paper flowers. I burst into the house and quickly told my mother about what I wanted to do. She was delighted and knew that my grandmother would be as well. I remember driving to her house that afternoon, feeling so happy.

My mother kept telling me how proud of me she was. We arrived at her house and found her sleeping soundly. Ever so quietly, my mother and I started to bring her indoor flower garden to life. We taped paper flowers all over her walls and windows. She pinned a few onto the curtains as well. Soon, her dreary and depressing bedroom was filled with brightly colored paper flowers. My mother went outside and picked some fresh flowers from her yard and put them into a few separate vases to scatter throughout her bedroom.

Once the room had been decorated with fresh and paper flowers, we gently woke her up. She looked confused as she opened her eyes and glanced around, but was soon smiling. Her eyes soon lit up happily and a few happy tears rolled down her cheeks.

She loved it. She couldn't stop thanking me for the paper flowers and insisted on having my mother write a thank you card to my class and my teacher. She started to recover after that day, a bit faster, and I like to believe that it had something to do with those paper flowers. You just never know what a simple craft can mean to someone.