Sometimes an image can have deep personal meaning, beyond what most people might see in it. This one speaks to me on a deep level that is not so easy to explain. What you see here, at first, is a dandelion-like yellow flower blooming in a caked and cracked soil.

The meaning this simple image has for me will only make sense if you know that I went through an abusive marriage, in which the love and affection gradually seeped out when my spouse fell into alcoholism. At one point, I had to get to the emergency room for a sudden problem, and she said “Call a cab, I’m busy.” Another time, I was being screened for a possible cancer, and she said “Die, please die!”  That was not her speaking, that was alcoholism. My spouse did not want treatment; it was so sad to see a gifted person destroy her talents. Perhaps it was not avoidable, it runs in that family. She wanted me gone. I did not abandon the marriage, but leaving it was an act of self-preservation. That was several years ago. She died this year, from complications of severe alcoholism.

I ran across this image a few days ago. I thought it was pretty cool, but then I got to thinking about it. Beauty is persistent, and it can start up in the most unexpected places. Beauty can show up in desolate places, like a half-empty heart not expecting to ever be loved again.

That is what has happened to me. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wasn’t looking for love. And suddenly, there it was. Nothing but cracks in a dry heart one day, and the next, something green and new and beautiful had rooted and started flowering.

I don’t quite understand how it happened. I do know that it makes me smile when I wake up in the morning, and that I smile as I drift off to sleep.

Her name is Barbara Ann.

Deep knowledge,and happy reading.
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