I love fresh flowers, but unfortunately they don’t last. You can see with these Peony flowers how they just weep and suddenly fall apart. The more I thought about that idea, the more I realized that many beautiful and life giving moments come and go so quickly.
The pay check that we worked hard for is suddenly gone to pay bills. There is a deflated feeling. The family gathering that one looked forward to also came and went. How you’d like to go back and recapture the time together. The trip that you planned with your friends is over. It was so much fun planning and it would be nice to hurry and recreate it.
Like these events that you cannot bring back, neither can you bring back the flowers. You can cultivate the plants for the next year and enjoy the photographs until then. We people, we can cultivate the relationships by phoning, texting, and writing one another regularly. Friendships and good feelings take time and energy to stay engaged. It is worth it; by all means be with those you love!
I think that is why we are all such picture takers. We want to preserve the best of times. We want to savor the feelings. We want to stay connected and share with others the good things.
When I was in a study group with Loyola students, I learned to “enjoy the process.” The studies lasted several years, but the graduation celebration went so fast. The best part of that celebration was our trip to New Orleans with our children. We spent a week there in March of 1990. The University treated the graduates with a welcoming Mass, food for the day, and a wonderful graduation celebration. The memory would have been less exciting without all the extra fanfare.
The family remembers the flooded streets and hotel lobby being consumed with several feet of water and how fast the town recovered. It is like those of us in the Chicagoland area. We get a snowfall and keep on moving forward. Amazing.
Enjoy and recognize these mini miracles are there for all of us and we can grab them! Don’t weep, our flowers will return more beautiful each year. Peace for your day. Delight in Living.