I had no choice but to take still life photos. My dog died in December, my husband died a long time ago, and I live alone in a cabin in the woods. “STAY IN,” blared the warnings. I am not unhappy in the house all day. I write. On a rare grocery store shopping expedition a few weeks ago, I bought a bouquet of mums to brighten the time of this 
coronavirus COVID-19. When all but one of the flowers died, I put the remaining one in my mother’s old rose bowl. She has died also, my mum has.
Just before I switched off the light, the bubbles caught my eye. I turned the overhead back on and took a still life that I shall title, “Still Life of a Mum After All Else Died.”
–April 2, 2020
✶✶✶✶
Writing from her cabin in the woods in southeast Washington State, Kathy McConnell is a blogger at Box of Tales and a guest columnist for her local newspaper. Her manuscript, Mapping the Topography of Grief – a Travel Memoir was shortlisted by Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association in 2017 and her photography was recently published in Burningword Literary Journal, Issue 90. She posts regularly on Instagram.
Another Chicago Magazine 