A Mysterious Flower

Have you ever had a memory you recall like a dream?  A memory so deep and vivid that it's become apart of your mythos?  A memory that has always been apart of you, yet you question if it's even real?

I have such a memory.

As a kid the home I lived in had a modest backyard.  It was part grass play area and part wildness.  About the midpoint of our backyard there was a white fence, and behind that there were three or four fruit tress, peaches and apricots, the ground untamed with rocks, wild grass, and sticks that poke.  My brothers and I weren't allowed back there, and when we did go we had to wear shoes.

Often we snuck in, sneaking through the small gate to grab a piece of fruit or explore.  One such time, while I was still in elementary school, I remember coming upon a flower close to the gate.  It was beautiful.  Unique.  It stuck up with colorful petals like a water fountain, tear drops in rows.  I plucked it and brought it into the house to show my Mom, who has no memory of this, keeping it in my room.  From there I don't know what happened to it.

The next day I went into the backyard, opened the gate, and in the same spot as before there was another flower, the same as the first.  I repeated my actions from the day before and brought it into the house, amazed at there being a second.

On the third day I opened the gate again, hoping to see a third flower, but it wasn't there.  I searched the whole area, hoping for another flower that never came.  I remember for weeks I would check to see if there would be any more colorful flowers, but there never was, and then I gave up the search.

In school I would draw pictures of the flower, trying to remember what it looked like.  I did that for years.  Once I was searching through a book in the library and thought I might have found a picture similar to the one of my childhood, listed under flower mutations, but even now I question this memory of a book with proof.

It's interesting looking back on my youth.  This memory feels real.  I swear that odd, colorful, beautiful flower I found really exists, but I truly question this reality.  I want the memory to be real, but I honestly don't know if it was.  Maybe it was all a dream.

So now it's this little thing that may or may not have happened.  I use to think those two flowers were gifts.  From whom I don't know.  But it felt like they were meant for me to find.  Maybe that in itself discredits this memory.  But still, a little mystery is fun, wondering if it was simply fanciful or real.  Honestly, who's not to say it wasn't?