The Girl Who Loved Lavender

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I once knew a girl who loved everything lavender. She used to collect hairclips and ribbons of all sorts but in only one color.

“It has to be lavender,” she would say, “or it would be pointless.”

With every purchase, she would smile like a little girl getting candy for the first time. She had lavender pens and bracelets. She even searched the net for lavender kittens. Her amused friends find her pre-occupation with the color cute.

One of her closest friends asked her one time, when she was examining a pair of lavender flip-flops, why she was so obsessed with the color.

She took a little pause before she answered, “It’s not just the color, I love the scent too.”

She then gave her friend the sweetest smile and went to the counter and bought the flip-flops.

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Several years have passed since I’ve last seen her. I would have completely forgotten about her if it weren’t for a common friend who I bumped into the other night. He said he was on his way to lavender girl’s house, to pay his last respect. She had been long suffering from leukemia he said. She finally succumbed to the disease and died Tuesday last week. He said that before she died, lavender girl even asked her mom to dress her all in white and not to have anything lavender near her coffin. That was to be her last wish.

“It’s strange,” he said, “how towards the end she seemed to make a turnaround and didn’t want to see or smell anything lavender.”

It’s strange perhaps, but it’s been known to happen.