Healing in Bloom Oversized peonies and a single rose—soft, full, unapologetically pink. For most of my life, I resisted both. Pink felt too sweet, too sentimental. Flowers? That belonged to my mother’s world, not mine. But life has a way of softening us in unexpected places. As I have cared for my mother through the quiet unraveling of Alzheimer’s, something within me began to shift. In the rawness of that journey—where grief is tangled with tenderness—I discovered love in its most distilled, unconditional form. And somehow, pink crept onto my palette. Flowers began to bloom on my canvas. This painting is about that quiet transformation. A lifetime of wounds, slowly healing. A heart, once guarded, cracked open and filled to overflowing.