Little Boy Came When the Sunflowers Bloomed

Every day past my due date felt so long. But he came as babies do…in his own time. Laughter punctuates his birth story and it’s this time of year especially that thrills my mother’s heart.

Four years ago I became a mom and felt the joy of it in those late nights nursing my son. I marveled at his being real while I felt the rush of air from our makeshift swamp cooler. I still treasure those stand-still moments as I watched him contentedly sleep in my lap on our bed.

Our son talked more than he ever cried and we would often wake to his enthusiastic baby chatter. He was sunshine bursting and he still is today. So, when the sunflowers bloom profusely and lean with life, I feel the celebration of those first early days of motherhood.

Not every experience into motherhood or within motherhood is nearly so gentle, but when it is good, let it be good.

And those early days were so good. Sunflower in our first garden’s bouquet, sunflowers when I walked him into the burgeoning garden in those new weeks, sunflowers in the years to come. Sunflowers we would plant together.

Now at nearly four-years-old, he holds a nearly spent sunflower like a parade baton and runs in happy circles. He points out the sunflower blooms that catch his eye and when the sunflower bloom wilts forward like a shower head, he enjoys the simple delight of a sunflower shower. Which is step underneath that wilting head at any moment, but most especially in the evening light, and say, “Pshhh!” then carry on with life.

Sunflower Season is a beautiful stretch of remembrance and celebration. The towering stalks mark the passage of time with repeated exclamation points until the softness of each bloom disappears into brittle late autumn.

But not before sunflower seeds are multiplied and not without finches dancing between those wizened stems.

As the years scurry by and infancy turns to toddlerhood turns to bonafide kid-hood, I don’t think of it as one season replacing the next…

But rather the seasons adding each on top of the other, weaving in and out with songs and conversation, memories and moments and seeds into blooms and blooms into wilted flower heads into seeds again for another season, a new season, a next one.

So, my son turns four-years-old this week and I love to watch him grow. Sometimes, I can hardly believe it. But I love to see it.