Moonflowers. You’ve likely heard of them, but have you actually SEEN them bloom? Now that I’ve grown them myself, I can answer for the majority of you by saying you have likely not.

Moonflowers are these wild botanical wonders that spend months stretching and twirling their clingy vines around anything and everything available to them. Their robust leaves and twisty vines will happily choke out and overtake every other vegetation around them, but when it comes to their actual blooms, the story is quite different.

Moonflower blooms are papery, delicate, ivory things that sneak out and unfurl under the night sky. They are brief, blooming for mere hours before they bow their heads and wilt to the ground. If you’re not awake and alert in the nighttime hours, you will miss their starry-eyed debut.

They never demand attention and insist upon blooming when it doesn’t make sense. They flourish when not many eyes are turned towards them. They’re a whisper. A sweet, subtle delight. They stretch out and sigh, “I am here, and though nobody may notice me, I will be here in all my glory for a wink of an eye.”

Life is full of “moonflower bloom” moments. It’s chalked full of tiny little delights unnoticed by most eyes. In fact, you must teach yourself how to look for all the small, seemingly hidden lovely bits hiding like gems in the night. “Moonflower blooms” are found in every second of every day. They are present in grief. They are growing amidst the ugliest of places. Without shouting for our attention, they open up and wait silently for us to notice.

And these writings, essays and poetry alike will exist to help us train our eyes to see them before they wilt away.

I have lived through some awful things in my life. I have said goodbye to five of our babies. I have lived through losses that could have destroyed every piece of me, body, spirit and soul. My situations have given me reason to believe life is this awful, cruel thing. However, I now exist to proclaim the opposite - life is this brief, beautiful thing, and we only have a few magic seconds here. There is beauty EVERYWHERE, even in the broken mundane.

Read along, friends. I cannot wait to jostle you awake and point out to the night of life and say, “Look! The moonflowers are blooming RIGHT NOW!”