Page 18 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
But just becausesheliked to leave the paper roses behind anonymously didn’t mean it was the only way.
“These flowers are your gifts to others,” she said to Bonnie and Mary. “So you should do what feels right foryou.”
“I would like to talk to the people who get our roses,” Mary said. “I think, for me, that’s important. With my hearing these days, I don’t get as much chance for conversation. So this feels like an opportunity.”
“It sounds like you have your answer then.” Chloe smiled.
So Chloe continued folding, collecting her paper roses in her basket to sprinkle around the city later, while Bonnie and Mary personally delivered origami flowers to people passing by on the Mall.
When a family of tourists speaking German walked by, Bonnie shouted,“Guten Tag!”
Mary held out a handful of yellow paper roses. “These are presents for you.”
The family blinked, caught unaware by the unexpected gifts. But then the small brother and sister looked at Mary, and when they saw her smile, reciprocal smiles bloomed across their faces. Their parents’ smiles followed a split second later.
“Thank you,” the father said, and he and his wife stayed and chatted for a while. They found out that Mary and Bonnie—both former flight attendants—had flown the JFK-to-Frankfurt nonstop route for a decade. Mary asked if her favorite bookstore was still on Börsenstraße and was delighted to find out it was. She even spoke a little in German to the kids.
When the family took their leave, they hadn’t even opened up their paper roses. But it didn’t matter what the messages were inside. What mattered was what had already happened—the laughter, the joy of discovering their similarities, the beauty of living in a shared moment.
Later in the afternoon, though, a volunteer from the Central Park Conservancy approached the card table. The embroidered name on his jacket said Felix Bautista.
“Do you have a permit for this setup, miss?” Felix asked.
Chloe frowned. “It didn’t occur to me.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to fold this up.”
“But we’re spreading kindness!” Bonnie said.
Felix crossed his arms. “You could be giving out pots of gold and it wouldn’t change things. No permit, no table.”
“What’s going on?” Mary asked.
“We’re not allowed to have a table without a permit.”
“Oh.” Mary looked down at her hands. Then she gave her best smile to Felix, all well-worn laugh lines so that her eyes disappeared into her wrinkles. “Well then, can we at least offer you a paper rose? It has a message of joy inside.”
But Felix just shook his head. “Pack it up, ladies.”
Later, at the end of his shift, Felix was about to head out of Central Park when he noticed a yellow paper rose perched on the base of a nearby lamppost. Sighing at the litter, he bent to grab it.
But the petal he held had already started to come undone, and once he picked it up, the whole flower unfolded.
Inside, there was a message:
All the small things you do every day make a difference. Thank you.
It was signed with a tiny heart-shaped rosebud.
Felix had to choke down a sob. Because it wasn’t easy being a volunteer at the park, even though he was trying to make it a nice place for everyone. Some days, he wondered why he had signed up for this job. No one noticed when he made sure the horse-drawn carriages around the edges of the park didn’t block traffic or when he quietly swept up fallen leaves or pruned trees to make the park beautiful. Even when he showed up first to help someone in distress, they quickly forgot him as soon as the fire department or ambulance arrived. But everyone noticed when he put up “Do Not Walk on Grass” signs or yelled at kids to walk their skateboards.
So this note… this unassuming paper rose…
“Damn. It’s like a metaphor for me, isn’t it?” Felix said, half laughing, half still a little choked up. Because that’s what those women on the Mall were trying to tell him, right? That they were folding these little origami flowers to try to make New York a better place, one small gesture at a time, even if it didn’t look like much on an individual level.
Just like his job every day.
All the small things you do every day make a difference. Thank you.
