On seeing or hearing the word, one may think of Van Gogh. In my case, the other thought that crosses my mind is of my Grandmother Louise, who, as a member of the Spiritualist Church, wore a symbolic Sunflower pin. And thinking of my grandmother, who I barely knew and saw, most often when she was confined to a state hospital, also makes me think of her daughter, my mother Joan, who also battled mental and emotional conditions, and my sisters, likewise. Well, we all do, don’t we? Battle chimeras of the mind and heart while trying to find our way from the inner darkness out into the cosmic light. Nothing unusual there. After all, it’s just life!
On my walk yesterday evening, something caught my eye that I had not seen before. A sunflower blooming in mid-October, but not one out in the open, in the adjacent field or even the roadside ditch where recent rains had puddled. This one had chosen, for unknown reasons, to try and grow up through a crack in the weathered concrete beneath a metal overhang that was attached to an abandoned steel building, which meant it existed in a place mostly absent of light and moisture.
Standing five feet tall, reaching ever upward on its slender but durable stem, one bud had blossomed fully and another was nearly ready to open. Over and over again, in the slight dusk breeze, this flower nodded its graceful head, smiling it seemed as if to say, “If I can grow here, surely you can handle the place where you’ve been planted.” I could not help but walk over, stand eye to eye, and bow at the plant’s sheer audacity and resilience. Someday soon, surely it will be gone, either blown over by a harsh wind or succumbing to the first frost. But for now, it stands as a monument to survival, a beacon of overcoming obstacles, a bright face in a world that is quite often perceived as being diminished by suffering and lack of opportunity.
~ LJ