Late November: Reflections on the Lily Pond

It is a short work week, as the American Thanksgiving holiday is Thursday. I managed to find a few minutes in my Monday to visit the Arboretum, where things are looking very Novemberish. The grasses have turned to gold. The roses are done for the season.

The Arboretum's lily pond remains unfrozen, and I seek out its liquid surface to contemplate things. Somehow reflections make things more clear, but perhaps only to me. The blue fence that surrounds the construction zone for the pollinator garden appears in my lily pond photos now. It's interesting and different, I'll say that about it.

I head into the holiday week, remembering a blip-posting I made 4 years ago: one about Thanksgiving, and gratitude, and how happy I was that my oldest sister, who had been dying, was getting well again, and would get to live! I remember the joy I felt the day I wrote that!

This past calendar year, on one of the hottest days in late July, my oldest sister died. It is one of the hardest things I have experienced in life. To say that I grieve would be an understatement. My sorrow walks with me everywhere. I cry both public and secret tears, every single day.

I still have many things to be grateful for, and I try to focus on those instead of what I've lost, but it's hard. Amid my gratitude for the rest of the blessings I DO have, my heart weeps and wails, searching for my sister.

But for the few minutes that I stand by the lily pond, watching the reflections, remembering the beautiful water lilies, thinking about the coming of the cold, I am at peace.

The soundtrack song is the great pianist George Winston, with Peace.