I'll be here.

Every spring the cherry blossoms bloom. Bursting with pale pink petals that float to the pavement of the driveway like fat feathery snowflakes. Unlike when it snows, the air is not so crunchy. Not summer enough for it to sweat. It is somewhere sweet in the middle. When the petals fall, I recall them sticking to my hair and eyelashes. I see so clearly my own hands outstretched, my own hands- yes but smaller. I fight the urge to bend over and reach into the pile of petals, chilly and damp from dew. I see my own smaller hands scooping into the pink to throw them in the air, just to see them twirl and dance to the ground again, to toss them at my little brother so that he too becomes caught in the snowstorm. Some winters I feel so separated from these chubby hands. But every spring when the cherry blossoms over my house, next to the driveway, blooms and her petals fall, I can see those hands again so clearly. They spill and cascade through my fingertips.