Dying Flowers for Brandi

A couple of  years ago my cousin Dina randomly wrote me a note (on facebook, I believe) about how she loved the photos I posted on my blog... of clouds. She and I had a wonderful back-and-forth correspondence, and for a while afterward I shot far more photos of clouds than I had. I shared a few here and elsewhere explicitly for her under the title Clouds for Dina.

Recently my niece (who is my age) sent me an email with a bunch of attached images. Apparently she had fallen in love with using her phone to photograph dead or dying flowers. When she showed her mom, my sister Cindy suggested she send them to me. And, of course, I adore them. In thanks, along with Clouds for Dina, I now also have this:

I'm learning that there are ways to show someone you are thinking about them when they are not present.

This is me talking about that. Secretly but in public.

This is how I learn to love,
an expression that for me often begins with language and moves into the visual and then returns to language.