Because life is fragile, it is important to live each day as though it is our last.

The Yellow Lady's Slipper is very rare in Colorado, but there was always one site quite near my home - up in the foothills - where a few of them grew. For years, I visited them each June and always reveled in the fresh rediscovery of these flowers. Two years ago, the High Park Fire burned in the vicinity, and no one was allowed up there. Last year, after the area reopened, I checked on the flowers and found none. It appeared that the fire did not burn that specific locale, although it did burn spottily nearby. Today I went back, and realized that someone most likely dug them up. There was a Forest Service tag on a nearby tree, and I noticed that a hole was present in the ground where some of the flowers used to be. An official-looking wooden stake was present as well next to the hole.

I found myself disappointed that these rare gems are now gone. I know that they occur in fifty or so other isolated locations in Colorado, and they also grow in other states. But still it is upsetting to think someone would take them. The note in my 1976 edition of William Weber's "Rocky Mountain Flora" says that they are "rare and almost exterminated by wild flower 'lovers,' foothills to subalpine. Endangered." For me, this disappearance of the Yellow Lady's Slipper is a lesson on the fragility of life. Of course, our own lives too are fragile. This realization can encourage us to live each day as though it were our last.

Photo: I took these pictures on June 5, 2012 in a Larimer County location.