A personal reflective piece by TWSS’ Rae Ferner-Rose.

Sitting at my desk in my bedroom in Bristol, I am looking at a jar containing dying daffodils. Something strikes me about the juxtaposition between the flowers’ form – the coming of something new, an emblem ringing in the spring, and the wilted petals, a sign of the end of life. As a cancer patient at the age of 19, I would often ruminate on life and death. Literature, music and art were among my companions as I sat through hours of dull and nauseating chemotherapy. Now, in the spring of my life, I have the gift of a second chance.

I found the daffodils in a tin can on my desk one afternoon as I came in from class, a simple act of kindness and love by my flatmate who has shared life with me for nearly four years. Last night I reached for one of the daffodils, I folded it in a napkin and left it between two heavy stacks of books on my desk. Perhaps I could relate to that dying flower in some way and in a moment of empathy I wanted to preserve its colour and vibrance, I wanted the bloom to have the gift of a second life just like I had.

Turning to my boyfriend in bed some nights ago, in a moment of desperation and sadness I told him that sometimes I still feel like I am on borrowed time. Like a little part of me did die during treatment that the rest of my body and mind yearns to follow. It is a deep guttural feeling that comes from deep down to remind me that I was reminded of life’s fragility in the most visceral way.

In a favourite essay on mine, ‘Cut Flowers’ by Frank Ferenbach, Ferenbach meditates “But what the picked flower longs for is eternal life in the vase.” As far as I know, eternal life is within no one’s gift, eventually, we all fade, just like my daffodils. Cut flowers, often given out of love and received with emotion, are just one of the daily reminders from Mother Nature that life is as beautiful as it is fleeting.

My pressed daffodil will not live on, but it will remind me of a cherished memory of a small token of friendship between platonic lovers. The companion flowers I will allow to wilt for a couple of days as a reminder of the subtle elegance of the life cycle, they will then go to the compost bin, and eventually, they will rot and return to the earth from which they were born.
Standing with some friends, chatting, we discussed how as we have reached adulthood we notice more the changing of the seasons – the slow warming of the weather, bird song in the morning, the clearing of the skies and the rolling up of sleeves. In a month or so Bristol will glow with daffodils, a rebirth in the springtime, and as I walk around the streets of my city, I will be quietly thankful for my second chance.

For Martha