I started growing sunflowers at the beginning of quarantine, with the absolute foresight and belief that they would 1) not bloom and die immediately or 2) for sure not survive, if they happened to break soil.
And then, to my utter surprise, they sprouted. And got taller. They grew leaves. They out grew their pots. They bloomed.
And tonight I laid their crumbling remains to rest, which is such a poetic way to describe the ker-thumping dump they made falling out of their pot and onto the bed of weeds on the side of the house.
I wept, embarrassingly. It almost felt as if I was saying goodbye to my friends. And then, as I do, I delved into the bowels of my abandonment triggers and lamented that everything in my life dies. People, dreams, and flowers alike.
But, in the weeping, I had a new thought.
While everything dies, that doesn’t negate the purpose in its living. It is not always “abandonment.” It is not always intended to result in a gut-wrenching farewell. For my sunflowers, it was a quiet acknowledgment of a job well done and a graceful exit (and again, not graceful in execution, only in theory). And while people have said this in condescension to me as a consultation, tonight it finally traveled from my head to my heart.
There have been things in my life that have been nurtured, bloomed, and died, leaving my focus on the shriveled remnants, forsaking the purpose of their presence in my life.
People and things aren’t necessarily intended to be permanent fixtures, and while the leaving or the passing is somber, I can change the narrative.
So my sunflowers didn’t die and leave me like everything else does. They grew, survived, thrived, brought me joy, gave me purpose in the wake of a global pandemic, and made me smile when I walked up to my front door each day.
And as I enter this new chapter of my life, it is ever so fitting that I bid them adieu.
















