A little background - my youngest daughter was on her honeymoon in Kauai when Clare passed away from Spinal Muscular Atrophy on January 4, 2013. Her and her husband threw 22 pink roses (one for each day she was alive) into the ocean as a tribute to her. She sent a picture of the ceremony and my husband captured it in a beautiful poem.
Roses for Clare
Every one of us believed
That it was only right that you should remain in our midst
That you should be allowed to grow and learn
And become the lifelong joy we were all sure we deserved
How ready we were to forget
That few events in an ordinary lifetime come with guarantees
We know now that this earthly life must have had little to teach you
That the powers that give, and then take away life
Had other plans for you
You were better than all of us
So tiny and fragile, yes, but courageous as well
Courageous in ways we ourselves had never been asked to be
We knew you were preparing to begin a new journey without us
And the wound of that realization is finally what helped us to see
That the fate that had been chosen for you
Was the fate you had chosen as well
For you had come into our lives to enlarge us
To help us to see what a gift life on this earth is for all to whom it is given
That no friend is expendable
To keep our loved ones close
That every day should be lived as if it might be the last
So we cast these roses onto the water
Twenty-two in all
To mark the days you graced our lives
Watching with tears in our eyes
As the petals drift out to sea
And disappear over the horizon
Your beautiful presence will always be with us
Beauty is never forgotten
And grows ever larger in the remembering
