The end of one thing, the beginning of another

summer's last rose

***

It is a grey, windy day. I walked over to Golden Gate Park which is positively overrun by people going to see the Tutankhamen exhibit at the de Young museum. The cars clog every sidewalk curb and jam themselves like puzzle pieces in the small intersections.

I went to the park to see what I could find. Actually, I needed to find something for a project (for lack of a better word) and then I saw this little rose, just hiding next to a curb.

I gave this blossom a story: that it was either waiting to be discovered or waiting to crumble.

Next week, K and the kids are moving to their new home. I can't even tell you how much drama there has been this week in their little lives, all of it through circumstance, and it seems like an unfair punctuation mark to a story that has been so sad, even though the move is going to happen. I just wish their last days here had been easier or that I could have done more.

And then it dawned on me that I won't be seeing these faces again like I have been, every week, for months. It feels like yet another loss, not so sad because I know that they are moving on to bigger and better things and the way they're living now is so unsustainable and difficult, but it's still a loss all the same.

I will miss them. But unlike this little rose that no one else will notice, I hope that K and the kids know that they are noticed, and just as beautiful.