Six dried flower stems (they happen to be daisies) hang upside down and partially shroud a single LED light bulb. On the surface below the lamp is a collection of petals that have loosened their grip and drifted downward. The petals will continue to fall, on their own, when the air swirls rapidly around them, or when the lamp is accidentally brushed against, and they will continue to accumulate. Perhaps the petals are wordless notes, reminders that we are witnessing a transition from one form to the next, that we are witnessing decay, that we are witnessing the slow degradation of a thing we once knew into a thing we now must accept. Over time, all of the petals will fall and the light will eventually be surrounded by the barren stalks of what were once flowers, somehow more dead than they were before. Dried flowers that have lost their petals is a suitable symbol of death.

The flowers themselves are from a bouquet given upon the passing of a loved one. No, 'loved one' doesn't come close to translating their relationship nor their presence into words. A being of light who loved unconditionally and with scalding purity. One who vividly enriched the lives of those he knew, saturating the mundanity of days with a gentle purpose. One who dilated the hearts of others so they may receive subtler and yet somehow vaster expressions of love. And, in their wake, the quiet and gnawing emotional void that remains in the heart decays into something else as well, perhaps transitioning in stride with falling of the petals. As the last petal lets go, the grief, our silent companion, might not resemble the flower of what it once was, and maybe it too becomes a suitable symbol of death.