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Certain symbols travel across cultures and centuries without losing their essence. The lily — the fleur-de-lis in its French form — is one of them. Rooted in ancient civilizations and religious traditions, it ultimately found a living home in New Orleans, a city of water, heat, and memory.
The lily does not grow in pristine soil. It rises from muddy water, along riverbanks where earth and water intertwine. Its purity is not the absence of struggle, but the ability to reach toward light while rooted in difficulty. This is perseverance in its quietest form.
In New Orleans, the fleur-de-lis is not merely decorative. It is a living emblem of resilience, belonging, and continuity. After devastation, the city adopted it as a symbol of survival, of community that rebuilds itself with patience, rhythm, and hope. It does not promise perfection, only the decision to remain.
Migration teaches a similar lesson. Growth is rarely linear or visible. It demands discipline, trust, and the ability to endure. Like the eastern Venezuelan coast my family comes from, where sun, salt, and water teach that living fully often requires confronting storms and embracing the unpredictable. Like the lily, we do not bloom despite the mud, but because we have learned to live within it.
The fleur-de-lis has become more than a local symbol for me. It is a personal metaphor for constructing meaning without denying the past, for achieving milestones without forgetting the effort that made them possible, and for inhabiting an identity shaped by fragility, strength, and purpose. Perseverance and resilience are not heroic gestures; they are daily choices.
Like the lily, we keep growing. Not because the ground is clean, but because the mud, when understood, also nourishes.
