Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Rose

 


It was a beautiful Autumn weekend in 2014. Friends of ours had invited us to their trout club. After so many years, it brought our little group of eight together for something other than our monthly Euchre game.
Some of us fished…some of us watched…it was simply too beautiful to not sit back and enjoy the view…and each other. 
As usual, I took pictures. And, as usual, I was more interested in capturing the scenery.

I wish I had done a better job of capturing time.

The past 18 months have kept our group apart. And, just when we thought it was safe to come out of our shells again…we lost something more valuable than time;

We lost one of us.

Today, I turn a year older. And I turn my thoughts to how we measure time. I have been drawn to the wisdom of the people who have been told “what they have” will end their lives before their lives might otherwise have ended. And I have been moved by their strength and their courage. 

Tomorrow, we pay our respects to the woman we lost this past week.

Everything ends, and you carry this knowledge with you inside, until you’re reminded by something like the summer’s fading flowers or the turning leaves that suddenly drift down from the trees in the wind.

Perhaps, the day after, we might rise, choose to take a bit more time, slow our step and make a phone call to a friend. Just be out there in the windy heat of summer…because it’s there. And so are we.

Capture it.