Leftovers from celebrations of love, hanging about, passing the days. What is it? A bouquet from my brother's wedding back in November. I think on all the bouquets I've held in my hands, starting way back when I was 5 and was the flower girl for my grandmother on her marriage to the only man I will ever know as a grandfather; thinking to the last one I held, the one I held at my own wedding twelve years ago. That one I preserved a while, left it in a special sort of bag...then promptly lost it when my husband and I moved to the house we live in now. I remember missing it, realizing I couldn't find it. I spent the next year searching for it in never-unpacked boxes, searching the storage shed, deep inside still-tied plastic bags. Had to be there - just had to be. I soon found myself mourning the token's absence, hurt that my carelessness had lost a bit of "love."

Later, one late night, I looked around the house and saw leftover love in the blooms of pictures on the walls, in stacked notes from my husband reminding me of things I needed to do but would for sure forget, in little shoes at the door with their flowing laces to the side, in the clustered toys underfoot, in the quiet, peaceful sounds of sleeping people who felt most safe...there...in our home. I smiled and shrugged, knowing that other sorts of bouquets would meet me the next day, and the day after that, and still the day after. Love...current, blossoming, alive.