Lessons from Lillies

An entry the other night in my Doctor Who journal.

The Lillies in the vase where I sit have a lot of buds that never opened - and probably never will. The buds had begun to be nurtured, had grown; it looked like they may have been just about ready to burst open. 

But they didn't. Chances are the flowers were clipped right about then. And so with their food and sunlight gone, they remain clamped into themselves once more, shriveled inside what almost was beauty. 

If you stay clamped inside yourself, you wilt that way. But approach life with an open hand, open heart; share the flower. For when that open bloom wilts, there is still some beauty to it; still much color. It says to me something like an aged warrior, or even an aged mother. One who poured themselves out, lived freely to the fullest, risking everything without regret and, at the end of it, says, "This was worth it all".