Our Rare Flower

In our garden, the celosia came back from last year’s seed.  It wasn’t planted. It grew on its own. When celosia self-seeds, bees and wind mix the pollen from nearby blooms, and the next generation is never identical to the last. The flower that returns is something new,  a variation nature created by chance.  It’s rare, not because it wasn't planned, but because it happened in its own way.  Rare diseases begin much the same way.  Through a small change in the body’s pattern, something new that science hasn’t seen before. They are difficult, often painful, but they remind us how complex and creative life truly is.

The beauty isn’t in the disease, it is what people find living with it.  The strength to adapt, the will to keep searching, and the compassion that grows between those who live with something rare and those who love someone that is rare.