The Thing About Flowers...

I've been noticing something lately about flowers. They fade quickly.

And not just when you cut them--that's easy to understand, since they're cut off from their nutrient supply. But while they're still attached to their mother plant, they don't last very long once they bloom. Maybe a few days, a few weeks, a month at best? You wait and wait and wait for this momentous occasion, when the flowers come out and don their Easter bonnets and show their pretty little blushing faces--SUCCESS!! And then...they wither away and die…

Until very recently, I used to think it was me, not knowing much about plants. For the last few years, I've been taking care of a sweet little Parade Rose that was given to me by a dear friend. I watched with excitement when new leaves grew as I watered it, every single day, keeping it out of direct sunlight. Inevitably, I'd forget to water it one or two days and the leaves would dry up a bit. Oh no…And when the flower bloomed, and I made sure to water it, but the flower still crumbled after a time. Bad plant caregiver! What did I do wrong?? Every year, I vowed to take better care of the little dear, my planty-plant.

This year, I watered every day and it flourished madly. The leaves came in a deep, healthy green. Then one day I saw that the gardener whacked all the leaves off--NO!! How could he DO that?? Well, it turns out they came back more plentiful and lush afterwards. The man knew his business, as he should. And not long after that, there was a bud! And soon after that, there was a bloom! A pretty little peachy-pink blossom. And in a few days, it will be nothing more than a memory (a well-documented memory, but a memory, nonetheless). Until next spring, when the whole thing happens again.

And here's the thing: this briefest of moments in time, this event, this climax is what we take away as The Experience. This is what we hold onto in our minds. This is what is to be appreciated, all the more for being something we get to witness a scant once a year. And can we not extend this to all aspects of life, that need cherishing? The time spent with family, friends, that day we got to do exactly what we wanted to, sunrises and sunsets, random acts of creation…Moments in time that don't last forever. Like the flowers, everything existing in time also fades. It cannot all exist simultaneously, to our perception. We notice only the stages, one at a time. It rises, it peaks, it falls quietly. It lasts only a day.

Make every one a good one, kids.