Photo: Kathryn Cameron

This is my second response to this week’s photo-challenge. However, I post it not for me but in memory of the photographer who’d taken it, Kathryn Cameron. This week marks five years since her passing and she is deeply missed by all who knew her. I know she’s thought of every single day.

Kathryn had sent me this photo of Swiss Chard from that day’s Farmer’s Market haul. She was washing the greens and something about that leaf’s structure and composition led her to position it on the window-sill and photograph it.

Beyond the stunning beauty of this natural masterpiece of leaf, I remember finding the pink veins as somehow representative of the tenacious carriers of both nutrients and chemotherapy inside Kathryn, who at the time was battling a recurrence of the cancer that would not long after take her life. The vibrant green and light shining through mirrored Kathryn’s indomitable spirit and her love of nature and all growing, flowering, living things. The leaf, placed against the sky, became a miniature Tree of Life, the manifestation of her loving heart and dedication to healing pain and trauma, offering succor, and living as a compassionate soul upon this earth. Now in the beyond.

This post is for you, Kathryn.

I love you more.

For The Photo Challenge