Growing Old Graciously

A while ago Tony brought me back a magnificent bouquet of tulips from the garden of a client where he was working. The tulips began as tightly closed buds and transformed, day by day, into luscious opulent blossoms basking in fully glory in the sunshine streaming through the window.

Each day brought a new beauty, until slowly, one at a time, each flower, having held itself in complete openness for what seemed like would be forever, gradually began to shed its petals, one by one. And in the latter days a newer beauty emerged from the skeletal lines created by the stalks and the starkness of the remaining petals drying on the stem.

I will leave the flowers on the table until their life cycle is done, because, as I myself begin to become more aware of the changes in my body and the signs of aging take place amongst myself and my friends, I am acknowledging that we too have a certain beauty at every stage of our lives. Maybe not the expectancy of youth, or the bursting forth of our stellar years, or the bloom as we come into maturity, but still a quiet and majestic beauty all of our own, if we are willing to see, and celebrate, it.