A frozen memory that has yet to fade. . A beauty that lingers in the mind, and leaves a yearning in the heart. Its color made more magnificent by the palette of the soul and its strokes sharper by the brush of the imagination. And we remember the soft fragile petals as we brushed our fingertips against their delicate frame. We recall the fragant bouquet of aromas made from sunshine and nectar. We see the dewdrops hanging from the glimmering leaves, refracting myriad beams of shattered light cascade through the corridors of our head adding brightness to those darkened hallways. We taste the sweetness of the air, and can just but hear the faint whisper of the wind as it caresses our darling blossom.
We don't remember the thorn that tore through our flesh and made us bleed. Nor the bees that chased us giants from their prize. We can't, or won't, call back the memory of each petal slowly fading, falling, dieing. Turning brown the leaves leave us not but the thorns that pierce us so. It's hard... with our desperate hope and futile attempts to keep something so special alive. The loss of its passing...
Still, it's just a rose.

Are we just lying to ourselves about the pain?
Or are we sometimes luckily enough to live, to lose, but still to love?