Petrichor and Rainbows
Ashley Lassetter
The thunder shook the ground with a violent shock. Lily had never been in a thunderstorm before. She looked up at her mother and shouted, “Mom, the storm’s coming! We won’t make it through. All our petals will be ripped and torn. Our pleasant light purple shade will be no more.” She quietly observed as her mother glanced down at her without the faintest look of fear in her eyes. Her mother bent down graciously and replied, “It will be alright, trust me. We have to open up to the storm.”
Lily, frantically trying to hide under her mom, screamed out “But mom! Aren’t you afraid? Storms are dangerous, and we will get trampled by the weight of this one. It is sure to kill us. I can’t make it through this storm. What are we going to do?!”
Her mom floated over her, covering Lily with her own petals. She kissed her daughter as she replied, “Oh, but Lily, now is when we must learn to dance in the rain.” She braced herself for the storm to come. She straightened up from the bottom of her stem, peeled back her petals, and began swaying in time with the wind, smiling up at the sky as the dim clouds rolled in and the distant sounds of thunder peaked over the hilltop.
Lily marveled at her mom, seeing a beauty she had never seen before. She realized that no matter how severe the storm, she would stand tall, and no matter how many petals she lost, she would open up to the abrasive winds, for she wanted to be like her mom: delicate and fragile, yet unafraid of the storms of life, accepting each raindrop with such grace and strength.
Lily, like her mom, opened her petals and swayed in time with the winds. Lily smelled petrichor and felt the raindrops begin to fall, calm in the face of the certainty that this first storm wouldn’t be her last, and she would grow and learn to dance in the storm just like her mom. The storms came, and the rain poured, and Lily twirled in the storm and discovered that the most amazing things in life can follow a storm. Lily smiled as the rain stopped and the clouds began to clear. She opened her eyes once more and squealed with joy as she saw, for the first time, a rainbow bound across the sky in radiant colors.
“Maybe storms aren’t so bad after all, Mom,” Lily stated as she rested on her.
“No, Lily, it’s all in how you respond to them,” her mother said as she welcomed the first rainbow that they experienced together.