When I look at this vase, I notice the petals on the table first. They are impossible to ignore. They feel like evidence, of time passing, of change, of what’s already behind us. As we age, this is often where our eyes go. To what we no longer have. To the energy that’s different now. To the version of ourselves we remember fondly, and sometimes mourn a little. The fallen petals can start to feel like a loss of beauty, a loss of possibility. Like proof that we are somehow les

Optimism often arrives at the bedside holding hands with hope. They are spoken together, breathed out softly, sometimes clung to. And almost always, they are misunderstood. There is a quiet judgment that can surface in these rooms. “ They are in denial. They don’t want to accept reality. They are pretending this isn’t happening.”  I hear it said about families who continue to hope, who allow optimism to live beside the truth that their loved one is dying. I don’t see denial.

Yesterday is a place we return to when today feels unbearable. It is where things still make sense. Where voices still sound familiar. Where routines exist and love feels intact. Yesterday holds what once was, and because of that, it often becomes a refuge when the present feels too sharp, too empty, too demanding. In grief, yesterday has weight. It carries phone calls that used to come easily. Ordinary moments that didn’t announce their importance while they were happening.

Memories are the places we return to long after someone is no longer here. They outlive goodbye. They outlast choice, distance, and death. They are the only thing that can carry a voice across time, the only way a laugh can still find us when the room is quiet. A memory takes you back without asking permission. It brings back the weight of a hand you once held, the exact sound of their voice, the way they looked at you when no one else was watching. And somehow, even when eve