A new LIFE

Ben hadn't felt like this in years. What was going on?

Ben felt his phone vibrate and reached into his pocket to retrieve it. On the screen was a photo of a newborn, swaddled in a blanket, wearing a white hat with blue trim. Congratulations, Pops! read the message from his son-in-law.

A surge of love shot through Ben’s heart as he zoomed in on the image, his grandson’s face so similar to his daughter’s when she was born.

He swept away a tear, remembering the elation and exhaustion he and his wife Tandy had felt that day, and wished she was here to share this new life.

He chuckled at the bittersweet thought of how she would have been beside herself with happiness, no doubt twirling in circles at the news.

‘What would you do to celebrate?’ he asked, still talking to Tandy as if she were there, despite her passing almost a decade ago.

Just then, a man loading flowers into a van across the road from where Ben was sitting in his pick-up drew his attention away from his phone and towards a cheerful little shop, its awning emblazoned with the classy floral logo Nazneen’s Flowers.

‘Of course, a bouquet!’ he said, convinced it was a sign from Tandy.

As he crossed the road, blipping his van locked, he felt an odd sensation creep over him. It was neither joy nor sorrow, more a physical force pulling him towards the little flower shop, and a sense of invincibility as if, today, anything was possible.

A rush of scents – rose, freesia, lily – hit Ben as he opened the shop door, and a kaleidoscope of colours filled his eyes. He rarely had occasion to be in a flower shop, but his work as a gardener meant he knew the name of every bloom on the colourful stand.