We have the most beautiful shrub in our backyard. It blooms in early spring and produces fragrant deep purple blossoms that change color on the vine to lilac and then to white, before dropping off. At any given time, all three of the colors are on full display – which is why the shrub is called “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (or “Brunfelsia Pauciflora” for you real gardeners).

Unlike most flowering plants, the blooms on this shrub don’t wilt or change shape as their colors fade. They retain their full shape and size – and just lose some of their purple pigment. Every day the bush looks different, because new buds are making a dramatic entrance in vivid purple, while yesterday’s blooms have transitioned to lilac and the formerly lilac-tinted blooms have turned white.

On their own, the individual blooms would not be so remarkable, but seeing all three colors – the present, the past and the future – opened up to the sun together against a backdrop of dark green foliage never ceases to take my breath away.

Well, it’s no longer early spring, and the last of the white blossoms have withered. The green leaves are still beautiful in their own way, but I will miss the pageant of color those blossoms have provided for the past several months.

Yesterday we were informed by a hospice nurse that my stepmother (whom I wrote about in my blog post, “A Time for Everything”) has transitioned to the “next phase”. She is 95 years old and is not in pain or distress, but she has been slowly declining since April. She is ready to move on, and has requested that no extraordinary measures be taken to prolong her life.

After the call from Hospice, I looked out at our “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” shrub and noticed there was a remnant of one withered white blossom still clinging to a branch. Its life cycle was ending, but that blossom had lived brilliantly in bright purple, then lilac, then white. A full and fragrant life, marked by phases that changed its color, but not its identity.

We found some old photos when we packed up my stepmother’s assisted living unit last week. My stepmom, my dad, my seven brothers and sisters, our spouses and children – 20, 30 and 40 years ago. The same people we are today, but over time, our deep purples have become lilac – and we are trying to hold off the transition to white (if only it was as simple as coloring my gray hair!) as long as we can.

Regardless of the phase of life we are currently navigating, I have found that every phase has its own beauty. And each phase is even more beautiful when it is viewed in the context of the whole – yesterday, today and tomorrow. Our youth, our middle years and our later years.

And even though I now have a Medicare card and am actively defending myself against CGI (the Cascade of Gerontological Indignities), I am still the same plant I was as a kid, as a college student, and as a parent.

Our yesterday’s inform our today’s and our tomorrow’s. So don’t hesitate to channel yesterday’s younger self and do something that makes you giggle or squeal like a little kid every once in a while! Or every day, if you can!

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Psalm 90:12