Removing My Website

  It’s 12:08. No one has peeked in! I wonder . . .   Beth’s thoughts floated toward her father.   12:10--still no one. Maybe they won’t notice?   Her defiance was unintended and reluctant. Midnight had come, but she didn’t want to hurry away just because a clock completed its revolution. No visitors were allowed beginning November 25, 2020, which was now 12 minutes in.  Just a little longer , she told herself. As soon as she was left, she couldn’t come back and didn’t know how long visitation would be closed down.   I’ll stay as long as they’ll let me stay , she resolved. Quiet enveloped Beth and her dad. He slept still, deep, and peaceful. The television was on--familiar light and sound for him. Her laptop, dimmer and softer, played voices of ministers familiar to her.  Occasionally the regular bustle of nurses rose into a wave of activity from the station outside her father’s room. Often it was the patient who cried out in pain. Beth prayed for him a...

  I’m not really a “flower person.” Blossoms went unidentified most of my life until a mystery bloom captured my heart and camera on a sidewalk in South Carolina. It wasn’t on display—quite the opposite, actually. Spilling over someone’s concrete barrier of a back yard, exotic flowers celebrated their slow-motion escape with a “Seussical” carnival suspended on vines. I could almost picture the “ Whos down in Whoville ” climbing on the whimsical explosion of color and taking a spin. I’m not sure how long I lingered with my lens drinking them in, but that moment marked me.  And no one I knew could tell me what they were. It took 10 years, many states, and thousands of flower photos to meet the curious blossom again. I was on official business—the delightful work of doing photography for a   botanic garden . If I had only looked at the displays, I would have missed the vibrant purple, raspberry, and lime green carousels just beginning to open on a bridge. Once again, they se...