Mockery in pink (and red, yellow and white).

It's not that they are mocking me. They can't help themselves. They are beautiful, and blooming. That's all they know.

I chose them for their colours:  red, yellow, pink and white; when I went to change the water this afternoon, I found them still vibrant, still alive. It hurt.

Three things, I found, are excruciating to encounter when grieving.

One is laughter from a group of people at the next table in a cafe. It burbles out of their throats so easily, while I struggle to swallow just one sip of a comforting coffee.

One is the sound of a child's voice, the opposite of death. It rings with her hope, but echoes my despair, magnifying my awareness of time running out. Of loss, and losses to come.

And one is the beauty of nature that shines out as a moon or a star or a flower, completely without empathy it would seem, just being what it is:  an amazing, eternally renewing mystery.

Unlike me.