Tissue Flowers

by Mary Stebbins Taitt · 130 words

When we were children, we often made paper roses from facial tissues. After folding several layers like an accordion, we'd wrap a string around them, open them up and fluff and arrange them until they looked a bit like roses. Pink tissues had just been invented and we didn't know yet that the dye was bad for the environment. On cold winter days, we'd make our homes look like spring with bouquets of tissue roses.

I'd never found any flowers in the real world that looked like those tissue roses, until today. The tissue fairy has been hard at work, covering this tree with tiny tissue roses to remind me of lost moments from my girlhood.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

image credit: mine, taken yesterday
location: flowers: Detroit, story upstate NY