A Tulip in January

For all of his adult life my father-in-law worked with framing lumber. As a child of the depression he never threw anything away that he might have a need of later. At the end of forty years of not burning his "good pieces", he had a garage full of small chunks of mostly usless bits of various kinds of wood.
Then the man who had spent all his efforts making sure his family had the necessitys to keep body and soul together changed--and became an artist. He used the last years of his life to turn out gifts for his friends and family in the form of flowers that will never diminish in beauty or, in any other way, become less in the eyes of those who recieved them. He was hugely proliffic in the manufacture of these blossoms and gave them away without ever a thought of reinbursment.
He's been dead for years now and I still see his art in the strangest and most mundane places. The counter of a local drug store is so adorned as is the windowsill of the store owner where he shopped. I've seen them in other states and have been surprised to recognize them in places and with people I was never aware he knew or had any reason to meet. That just means that I didn't know everything about an interesting fella who I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with.
Now, as my own retirement approaches, I find myself wondering what I will leave behind as a remberance. I might not know what it is yet, but there will be something. And maybe that is the best part of Red's gift.