A Lily's Promise

I've always dreamed of being something great. Of getting out of the tiny, smoke-filled house by the factory. Away from a mother who isn't there and a father who doesn't care. Of taking Lily with me. Lilian. My little sister Lily. She was so aptly named. Petite and delicate, so like and yet unlike her namesake. She is a flower that blooms in the midst of despair. Doll-like face, white-blond curls; she is the image of serenity. She should have been born to a rich family who could take care of her properly. But am I glad she's beside me. She's all that holds me here.

The sun is setting into the smoke-filled sky as I walk down the muddy street. Where I go doesn't matter. I just have to get away.

I've always wanted to leave. There was only one thing holding me back - Lily. I couldn't leave her. Not with a father who spent all of his days in the factory working, and then spending the money the same evening trying to knock himself out in the pub.

The street ends. I pay no attention to where I am going, but my feet come across a familiar path, and I find myself hoping they will lead me into oblivion.

I longed to get into Uni. I knew I could, I'm smart enough. Too bad Dad can't afford - or be bothered? - paying for our education. If only Lily could go to school, I don't even care if I don't, but she's so young, she needs to learn.

I look up, and stand rooted to the spot. No, I start to shake my head. No, no, no, no, NO!

I scream it. My vision blurs, and I realize I'm crying. Which are my tears, and which is the rain I have only just noticed pouring down my face?

The one thing Lily loved best was flowers. Even I - who she named Wildflower - came second.

Lily would spend hours in the little flowery field we called our own -

This field...

- smelling flowers, making tiny daisy chains. She'd sing, too. She had a lovely voice. She'd sing to the flowers, sitting in the meadow, and the flowers would sway with the wind to the sound of her voice.

Things were simple for her, with no daisy petals: I love her. He loves her not.

And always she had her flowers. She was a flower herself. But Lilian had wilted.

My Lily, who had never seen a Lily herself. Who sung to daisies and dreamed of lilies.

She wilted like the very flower she was, shrinking and paling. And I, who stood and watched her fade away, watched her die, could do nothing.

I began to run, through the field, through the flowers, hating the sight of them.

I do not know how long I ran. But, stumbling and falling, I finally came to a halt. And the first thing I saw through my teary eyes was a lily.

What irony. I began to laugh, I began to cry, I could not tell the difference.

I grabbed for it, tearing the lily out of the water, nearly falling into the pond. The pond. A dirty, rank place. No wonder we never found it. It looked more like a swamp, add a frog or two. And in the midst of this, a single white lily grew. Among the misery and despair the proud flower had floated, strong and perfect and innocent. So unlike my Lily, and yet so like her in its perfection and aloneness against the sorrow.

I stood in the rain and cried, my tears mixing with the rain. My hair was plastered to my face and my clothes were soaked and in my hands I held the lily.

I thought back to all my dreams of escape. But they always stayed just that, dreams. And Lily, in her smiling innocence, had given me a way. Yet it took me her death to realize that. I could not save my precious Lily, I could not fight against her death. But maybe I could fight against the death of those many others, of all the flowres dying of cancer.

Lilies we all need to love and protect. Lilies and daisies to give joy, roses for beauty. But it is wildflowers like me who survive. Who endure. Who fight.

My tears had stopped. I stood by the pond, hardly noticing that the reain had suddenly stopped.

The lily dropped from my hand, and I watched it float away with teary eyes. It floated further and further away from me, never to return. But where it passed, it cleared a path in the murky waters. A path to be walked.

I blink away the tears. And with the sun's last light, I whisper "Goodbye" as I turn and walk towards the waiting flowers.