dandelionroar!

story by | angela smith

Iadore dandelions. I admit it. I look at them and I don't see weeds. I see flowers in every sense of the word. I love the way they brighten up a lawn and it makes me sad to see lawns, hillsides any green area without them. They are beautiful, happy, wonderful little bursts of sunshine and childhood scattered across lawns and fields poking up in sidewalk cracks and anywhere else that they can take root. We actually have one growing out of the oak tree in our front yard at the moment and I chuckle every time I look at it.

My husband is forbidden to kill them and at any given time between the months of May and October you can walk into my house and find jars, glasses, vases, anything that holds water filled with them.

To me they represent spring and summer at its very best but more than that they represent childhood and all the innocence and love that comes with it. My favorite thing about spring is that first fistful of dandelions that any one or all of my kids brings in to give me. They walk in beaming at the beautiful gift they were able to pick with their own little hands and offer me.

I have the first dandelion my oldest son ever gave me pressed in my journal. I still remember the day. It was late April in 1997 and he wasn't quite 2-years-old yet. We were out for a walk and he stopped as most toddlers do and bent down to look at the ground. When he came up he offered me the most beautiful flower I had ever seen clutched tightly in his little chubby fingers. It was a bright yellow dandelion. It perfectly reflected the sunshine in his big brown eyes and to me it was more valuable than a vase full of the most exotic, fragrant flowers the world had to offer. He’s taller than I am now and doesn’t bring me dandelions anymore, both of which make me sad, but thanks to that one pressed flower I will always have a cherished memory and a piece of his childhood. That single flower is at least as precious to me as his first pair of shoes or the outfit he came home from the hospital in. Maybe more so because it wasn’t something that was put upon him, it was something he spontaneously picked and gave to me. It was because of that innocent childhood gesture I learned what most moms know...dandelions roar, giggle, smile and sing!

That tiny burst of yellow is a roaring reminder of the sunshine that radiates from your child's smile and the music that is their laugh as they run across a field of dandelion puffs blowing and kicking them up into the air. They roar with the heartfelt enthusiasm and love that is offered from a tiny little hand as they reach up and hand you a bouquet full of them.

That is why my husband is forbidden to kill them and why I correct anyone who calls them a weed. Because to me they are flowers in every sense of the word and I am as proud of my overflowing windowsill of jars, glasses, bowls or whatever else my children can find to put them in, as I am of my best vase overflowing with roses from my hubby.

So whether they are a weed or a flower in your world I hope the next time you see one you'll stop, think, remember, smile and take a moment to smell the dandelions.

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