Paper Roses

The world is a very strange old place. When we are young we think we will always remain the same. Yet slowly like water on a rock we change. The person we become is no longer recognizable by the person we were yet at our core we are still there.  Recently I found out about a death of a first crush, a person that  I admired greatly in my youth. Reading the wonderful words of people that loved him I realized that he had become someone that I knew when he was someone else. He had evolved. I had also. So many things change us. We become wiser yet also more inflexible. More understanding yet less tolerant of other views. Sadly we lose touch with those that form us. Life gets busy and time rushes past.

Looking closer I realize that he was right they were only paper roses all along.  We need to smell, taste and enjoy the real roses while we are here.

Rest well dear friend. You helped to form the person I became for that I am grateful.