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A woman in white looks up at the clouds as she smoothes a blanket
over green grass. Cotton candy clouds float by slowly
and deliberately. Time seems to stand still. Her hand reaches up to
touch these puffs of heaven that elude her and in her disappointment,
she gives up.

Walking over to the brook, she looks down on her image and cries.

"Who is that beast?', she whispers.

"It's you!", a voice replies.

"I don't want to see you!", she shouts.

The water rushes over the rocks in a mock silence to her question.
A rock left her hand and crashes into the water.

"I see no beauty.", she says.

"The sun is warm, yet my face has the feel of marble. I open my arms
in welcome, yet the world looks the other way. I'm not at all sure that
a fragrant breeze can make me feel happy. I'm sure it would roll over
the silky green hill or something I almost tumble over into
nothingness. The flowers are lucky. They can bend and not break. These flowers are created by nature and only here for a short while, I must thrive in this field of flowers."

The water bubbles over the rocks and the scurrying
squirrels gather acorns. She dreams of another place and
time. A bulging heart causes her to paint the meadow with shades
of yellow, blue and azure; tint it with reds, mauves and pinks, then
provide highlights of white and cream.

"What is beauty?", she wonders.

She looks down at the large basket of wildflowers in her arm.

A voice says, "If you only knew. You are good inside. See yourself
as others see you."

"There is no perfection for me." , she says

"Don't you know it's all an illusion. No one is perfect. Only
kindness lives on in the minds of friends who love you.", a voice says
softly.

"Kindness is something that I do. It comes naturally and people take
it and walk away. I wish someone would turn around and see me.", she
replies.

"What do you want them to see?" , a voice, like a phantom,
whispers.

"Beauty."

"True beauty is written on your face and how you live.", a voice
says.

A butterfly lands on her hand and she touches it with a touch so
tender and light.

"I wish to be beautiful like the flowers and you, my butterfly.", she
whispers.

One tear fell to her cheek.

Kindness?, she thinks to herself.

What has kindness done for her?

She thinks a minute. And smiles...

Goodness and beauty never take the same path in one life. So the
flowers she loved so much decided to love her back.

A lovely hand reaches down and plucks the flower and brings it to
a cheek. The softness of skin against flower. The fragrance of flower
to nose. The smile blooming on the lips. The flower to adorn the
hair.

A hundred years from now, the woman is dead and gone, but the
flowers will call her back to life. The flowers smile and live again.

As she lives.