I enjoy watching the slow progression of life across my land. Yesterday I stood on the porch, leaning against a cedar pole, and looked at the flame leaf sumac with all the new sprouts popping up. I felt good. And my crape myrtles are getting ready to bloom, and all the turks caps are standing tall, and they’ll be blooming in no time. The morning glory continues it climb up the trellis and the honeysuckle is budding out again. Glory be.

Of course, I wish I still had my sharing partner. We’d often stand together just looking at our place. But that was then, and this is now, and when I look these days, all I have are memories, and that will have to do. An odd thing about looking at things of beauty, is the overpowering urge to share it with someone. Early on I suppose you do it to see if you both like the same things, later its just to say, I love you. Most of the early dating days with my wife were spent showing each other things and places we loved, and when that worked out it became what we did to keep things fresh. I’d travel on business, find a nice place, take her back as soon as I could.

One other thing I’ve discovered over the course of the last year or so is that the tendency to share beauty also has a certain healing power to it. Because my friends insisted on sharing things with me and taking me to places where I’d never been. All that beauty and newness began to rub off and salve the wounds. I began to notice to notice things once again, and think life was pretty good. That was nice. It became part of the new now and the new me. I think about that, too, when I stand on the porch looking at the sumac. I guess that’s how the future came back into play.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale