Dandelion Bouquets
Sandy’s Note: This story was originally written May 16, 1996 by Linda Janssen Gjere. Linda and her family lived across the street from us in Omaha on 164th Ave. My oldest son, Zach, was three years old when this lovely story was written.
Little Zach brought his mom a dandelion yesterday … “flower for you, mom” and a sweet, but calculated grin …. cuz he knows he can pick dandelions with impunity, and still charm his mom a little bit …. dandelion bouquets … and once there was dandelion wine, and dandelion greens in early spring salads … but no more…
now dandelions are just weeds, and truly hated weeds … with vile chemicals applied, and neighborhood fights about who doesn’t take care of theirs, that almost rivals child rearing arguments…
as i dig them up … again and again … it’s hard not to admire their tenacity … and then I remember when sunflowers were despised by corn cultivators… and now the fields reach the horizon and beyond … will dandelions become a cash crop, too?
and when I see a borrow pit, filled with yellow … or a truly magnificent specimen in an otherwise perfect lawn, i think of lois, dead my children’s lifetime, who admired dandelions, and found for them a place in her organic yard and garden … and had pictures of them too … and worried that they were no longer safe to eat or drink because we’d waged war on them so long …
clean, organic living didn’t save her from her cancers … nor did technology … nor did a supermacrobiotic diet …
and she died unready and unwilling, a broken-winged bird, cursing the journey as she embarked ….
all those thoughts merge and fade away, as Zach gives mom a dandelion bouquet …
