Stop and smell the "flah-flahs"

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Leilani, it’s that you can’t walk by a bed of flowers without stopping.  She kisses them, shakes them, and bends their stems.  She always stops and smells them.  She notices the flowers, appreciates them.  They don’t have to be roses.  “Flah-flahs” (Leilani’s term for flowers), are there to represent the beauty in life, but it took my seeing them through the eyes of a child, where everything is new, to remember that.  And if it weren’t for her, I would have kept walking right by them.