What a weekend. With the unjust sentencing of Jordan Davis’ murderer, there’s been an outpouring of rage and heartbreak in all corners of my life. What will it take to get justice for everyone? What can we do to better the odds, which are stacked against people, for being Black, teenaged, queer, trans, female, immigrant, indigenous or differently abled?

With each death, we raise our voices, we write, we protest, we petition. We fight. We lay flowers for the dead.

Naming these markers of identification, of difference, roll off my lips like a requiem for a world we would like to live in. A world where difference doesn’t invite fatigue or fear, but a sense of wonder. But we’re not there yet. Not until all people’s lives are considered equal.

Information spreads with haste in this day and age, and each day we learn about a new brutality in different forms. Intimate violence. Gun violence. Violence at the hands of old white men who are allowed to kill whomever they want and get away with it, just like when this country was born. With each death, we raise our voices, we write, we protest, we petition. We fight.

We lay flowers for the dead.

Flowers on pavement as tributes to the ones who have passed. Handlebars of white ghost bikes adorned with blossoms. Bouquets laid upon caskets to mark the temporality of life. Unopened buds under frozen ground, waiting for the precise moment to burst. Flowers bloom and decay. Each end is a new beginning.

My closest brush with death has been the passing of my mother’s closest friend, Manju, a few years ago. She loved flowers. Her gardens were a place of refuge and creativity. Spring and summer meant fresh cut blossoms for her friends. Manju succumbed after a long, tenuous struggle with breast cancer. At her funeral, her daughter made sure to lay her mother down with her favorites: hydrangeas, lilies, roses, jasmine and dahlia. Rounds of old friends mourned the loss of this vibrant force in our community. They brought flowers to pay their respects, to commemorate her with her favorite flowers during her time on earth.

I remember thinking: Funerals are more for the living than the ones who have died.We began ripping buds and blooms from stems. We covered her body with her flowers. They too, would burn into dust.

We cried, shuddered and held each other. Eulogies fill us with reflection. They let us breathe and remember. But what has stayed with me the most was the following day, when a few of us gathered to ready the body for cremation. There is a finality to burning that makes death tangible. As Manju lay there, a vessel to take on a new form, we began ripping buds and blooms from stems. We covered her body with her flowers. They too, would burn into dust.

This has been a sullen and relentless winter. I haven’t felt this inward and cold in twenty years.

Today, I saw a dried bouquet laid to rest on a snowbank. I miss seeing flowers.

For more writing on culture, feminism and botany, please visit Hi Wildflower: www.hiwildflower.com