Day 27: Some Wounds Make Flowers

Cultivating Resilience and Growth

There are days when memory arrives quietly, through a color, a texture, the soft sound of a brush moving across canvas. I don’t always invite it, but I’ve learned not to turn it away. Grief has its own rhythm. Sometimes it lingers at the edges, sometimes it fills the room.

I was painting today and found myself back in an old memory, creating with people I once felt close to, all of us trying to soften something hard, loss. We didn’t have the words for what we were feeling, so we painted something instead. And that something has stayed with me for a decade. The painting didn’t fix the loss. But it gave it form. It let the ache become something visible. Something human.

Grief isn’t linear. It doesn’t play fair. But creativity gives it a place to land. A way to honor without unraveling. A way to remember without drowning.

Some wounds never heal.

Some just make flowers. I'll let you sit with that.

Gentle Assignment:

Think of someone you’ve lost, whether through death, distance, or the slow erosion of time. Let yourself remember them gently. Then, if you feel up to it, create something in their honor. A sketch. A few colors on paper. A sentence. A sound. It doesn’t have to be beautiful. It just has to be honest.

“Creativity doesn’t erase pain, but sometimes it turns it into something we can hold without breaking.”

Michelle Joy Brown

Painting by Michelle Joy Brown. Acrylics. 16”×20” On canvas. $300. Inquire if interested. 🥰🥰

Your Blossoming Art Friend 🌼

Michelle Joy Brown

Your financial support really does go towards helping this artist purchase supplies to continue painting and entering exhibitions as well as selling art. I'm a full-time artist now, all monies I earn supports my continued journey.

Thank you for your support and love. 🥰🥰

© 2025 Michelle Joy Brown. All rights reserved.

No part of this content or artworks, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.