Not another Bloom Where You are Planted?

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After the flood devastation of 2013, the landscape of Southern Alberta has changed forever. (Till the next “Hundred Year Flood.”) Boulders have been moved by the flood waters.  Tonnes of rocks have been lifted and moved. Trees uprooted, relocated.

Majestic and special spots have been altered forever …. “Danger, the bank has been undercut” read the sign on my favorite bench, before it was removed for safety reasons.

IMG_3439Undercut Bank along the Bow River

These are small issues compared to the loss of homes and property. A week after the waters had poured over its banks…. roses bloomed where flood waters had raged.

Some of the land I’d stood on a week prior, was now laying on the receded river bank fifteen feet below me. The vegetation had moved down as well.

In Banff National Park, wildflowers bloomed this past summer; but I wondered where blossoms would be showcased next year.

Bloom Where You Are Planted, takes on new meaning.

What about Bloom Where You Have Been Washed To, or Where The Wind Has Blown You, or Where You’ve Been Shoved  or Bloom Where You Have Fallen?

Grief like a tsunami ravaged my life in 2005 …  and now I, along with many others,  have been given a new twist to that bloomin’ challenge. I have not been tenderly replanted, I have been washed up on a different shore. Can I still bloom?

There is much beauty to be found every where, even in this new territory of loss. How do you meet the Bloom Where you Have Been Planted challenge?

The post-flood roses were more beautiful than ever.IMG_3445

5 thoughts on “Not another Bloom Where You are Planted?”

  1. I believe we passed each other (as yet un-introduced) in the hallway of the Asper Building yesterday. This morning I finished reading your book; lent to me last month by a friend. My grief has been generated by a different life experience, but I identify with so many of your descriptions.

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  2. Hi Joc! I just read your book and found your blog. I always knew you were compassionate and kind, smart and capable of anything, but I didn’t know you were so brave. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability, for giving words to pain that is inconceivable unless you’ve experienced it, for working so hard to choose life every day and giving others hope to do the same, in their own way. Thank you for your blog and your on-
    going words of hope and inspiration for all of us, even if we haven’t experienced the weight and depth and shattering intensity of grief you have. I am inspired to allow myself to bloom where I’ve chosen to plant myself and to choose to live each moment a little more. I look forward to reading your future blogs.

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