For a dollar she had purchased a pack of miscellaneous seeds, tossed them onto the prepared soil, scraped a bit of dirt over the top, sprinkled awhile with water, and otherwise forgot about them given she’d other things to do.
In a modern day sequel to the fairy tale about Jack-and-the-Beanstalk, seemed like overnight three sunflowers burst onto the scene.
Even before they blossomed, one reached a whopping 76 inches in height.
Given she was only five-foot-one, it took standing on a bucket to be face-to-face with it.
It was as she stood atop her overturned bucket that she heard a squeaky little voice trying to get her attention.
‘Hey! It’s me! And me! Down here!’
‘Down where?’
‘Here! Down here! By your feet! You almost stepped on us!’
‘Oh, there you are. Sorry little daisies, I didn’t see you. Or your little spotted-winged friend.’
Just as pretty but far more delicate and fragile, two daisies – and only two daisies, together with their ladybug pal who sat perched on one of their petals – struggled to be noticed far below and in the shadows cast by the bright-orbed yellow sunflowers way above.
Having found these new friends among the flowers, each morning she’d take time to chat with them, even sing to them some of her favorite country love songs, giving them something to drink, asking how they were doing, enjoying their company.
Then came the inevitable day when the two daisies seemed a bit under the weather, a bit worse for wear, signs of age noticed in petals drooping a bit, wrinkles appearing where there had been none before.
And so she gently snipped their stems and placed them in the kitchen on the table where the sun streaming in through the window could yet provide golden highlights on their fading beauty.
The never-thought-possible-but-new-found love of her life in their own golden years looked up from his computer and smiled.
How like the daisies they were she thought, a bit worse for wear, wrinkles appearing where there had been none before.
She smiled back at him, and pointing at the single petal that had fallen next to the daisy pendant he’d bought for her, her lips whispered to him the message of the daisy:
“He Loves Me.”
