Flowers inspire me to think about how I wish to understand morality,and how I mean, if possible, to die in a burst of love, glory and feeling. Flowers and leaves die so well, they leave us with a final burst of color, as if to inoculate against the harsh winter we are told is coming.

Few of us know how to die well, and how cold we? The aged and the dying are sealed off in containment facilities, out of sight and mind of most of us. The elderly have vanished from our culture – from books, movies, TV shows, you will not see them on FX or HBO or Hulu or the networks.

Politicians see the elderly as another vast lobby, we are viewed mostly in terms of how much they will cost to keep alive

The flowers and leaves are a guide to me about how to die, even as they leave us after the first hard frost, they become even more beautiful, perhaps accepting, perhaps defiant. One last kiss before they go.