My elderly neighbor, Miss Emmy, is in her 80's and independent as they come. Her husband passed away long ago, and it is Miss Emmy who maintains the house. She has always push mowed, and taken care of her yard herself, and she has her massive Live Oak trees trimmed religiously. For the past couple of months she has been in assisted living. We have missed seeing her take her evening walks, and Taryn particularly has missed having her to chat with. A favorite past time for our little eight year old has always been to just go sit with Miss Emmy in her driveway as she enjoys the cooler evening air.
When Miss Emmy left, we were told she would just be gone for a couple of weeks while they got her medications adjusted, but a couple of weeks has turned into a couple of months, and her once well manicured lawn has become weedy and unkempt. I stopped today, walking past, to take a photo to send to my husband, suggesting we mow it in her absence. Her granddaughter hasn't been by recently, and Miss Emmy would hate to return home and see how the weeds are taking over. I got down at lawn level to take a picture of all of the weeds, and my 6 year old son stooped down right next to me and said, "That's going to be a great picture, Mommmy. You got all of the most beautiful dandelions in it!" Then his sister picked one to make a wish, that she was sure not to tell me or it wouldn't come true, and he cautioned her, "Don't take anymore, Taryn. We need to leave wishes for other people."
I smiled at those two cuties. I thought about running through our huge backyard as a kid in Maine, kicking the puffball dandelions so that the white fuzz would go flying, or making a wish and blowing on them with all my might.
I don't know when dandelions came to mean weeds instead of wishes for me, but I hope my kids to see them as conduits for wishes forever. That's a much better way to view the world.
"Even when we grow up, we can still whisper our wishes upon the wind..." Jill Hanna
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