Picking up the Petals

This is a flower from the bouquet that my youngest brought for me on Valentines Day. She had the roses in one hand, a Starbucks vanilla cappuccino in the other and managed to juggle some caramel creams too. All my favorite things. She hugged me and said, "You're my one true Valentine, mom." She is 18 years old. I tell you this so you will have an inkling of how lucky I am.

                             

                                                    

This is what was left of a rose from that very bouquet after my grandbaby, 17 months old, sniffed a little too heartily and cherished a little too mightily. "Oh", I said at the sight of petals at her feet, and this in her hand. "Star", she said, and so it was. My grandbaby handed me a star.

Since I have been blessed with this tiny new being in my life, I have actually begun to think, in many ways like a toddler again. So much is beautiful, the rocks we find and coo over, the petals at our feet that are are soft and veiny and hold life, still. And I marveled at the divine timing, this grandbaby coming just when I need her most. Just when I needed to be retaught, that rocks are beautiful, because, rocks it seems are about all that I can acquire now. And if flowers are in pieces, and petals lie at our feet, well, isn't that a wonder too? As the wee one has shown me today, when you pick up the pieces, you should  look, really look, at what you have. And then hold it dear. "Because stars fall from the heavens sometimes and miracles rise out of little things..."*

 


*This is from a quote that I have carried around with me since I was a teenager, the newsprint brown with age, and credited to anonymous. When googling it to find its maker, I found, of course,  that I was not the only one wondering. http://callmenurse.blogspot.com/2010/12/stars-fall-from-heaven-sometimes.html