The Ribbon That Remembered — Under the glasshouse roof, rain clicked like tiny beads while Selah unrolled a faded green ribbon from her coat pocket. Read the full story →
Under the glasshouse roof, rain clicked like tiny beads while Selah unrolled a faded green ribbon from her coat pocket. She had carried it through three winters, tying it around borrowed lanterns and unfamiliar door handles, waiting for the day it would finally circle the holiday tree in the grove of sleeping poinsettias.
The gardeners had already tucked fir boughs into a tall shape and set holly berries in bright clusters. Selah threaded her ribbon between pine needles, past paper-thin leaves that smelled peppery and sweet. “Just once around,” she whispered, though the ribbon kept finding another curve, another branch, another quiet place to rest.
Then the end slipped from her fingers and brushed a small brass tag hidden beneath the lowest poinsettia. Her own initials gleamed there, scratched in wobbly letters from years ago. The ribbon had not been waiting for the tree at all; it had been measuring the way back to the first place she had ever belonged.
Selah tied the final bow beside the tag, and the glasshouse seemed to breathe warm leaf-scented air around her. Next time you see the curled ribbons among the flowers, you may notice how one of them knows exactly where it is home.
