The silence between the notes

 I wish I'd found the garden before my first failed test,  my first lost love, my first lost job,  my first loss of self, my first loss of faith, my first loss of hope. In a garden, every season has its own journey of hope and growth and death and faith. And we never know exactly what it might become until it has already been. Sometimes, after winter, a dry brown stalk seems a loss then Hope says to wait  for growth below the snow. Sometimes, the sun scorches the blossoms before they've bloomed but roots remain to try again in the fall when Death begins to declare the rest. Sometimes, seeds scatter through the soil, under cover of dead leaves and stalks until the spring when life begins again. Sometimes, we forget that Life was there all along. Just unseen. In a different form,  on a different Journey, to create a new garden that has never yet been. The stalk had died but did not fail to survive; it succeeded at protecting unseen life. The roots were buried but did not fail to