Dandelions

Dandelions

Kurt sat cold at the end of his driveway, a bowl of sugary offerings for the children settled in his lap.

He treasured Halloween, but the festivity was winding down. Night had completely fallen. Most of the children and parents had come and gone. Parents with children dressed as pirates and superheroes and princesses, filling Kurt with delight at their innocence.

Kurt had been a child once too. A child who’d adored Halloween. As a man, he regarded this night as a duty to return some of what he’d long ago received.

The rush of children was always in the first hour, then it dwindled. The evening had gone cold, numbing Kurt’s hands and feet. And he sometimes felt silly, sitting all alone in the dark, waiting at the end of his driveway. With only 20 minutes left until the candy-collecting curfew, he considered ending the night early, before convincing himself he was obliged to endure.

The second hour was fading. It may have felt colder than it really was, as Kurt eyed a few latecomers, still down the blocks.

Kurt watched as a straggling family approached. He watched an unsteady toddler wandering along his sidewalk, trailing its parents. They stood, patiently waiting, coaxing him in gentle voices to catch up. The boy stopped at the edge of the grass. Something about Kurt’s emaciated lawn, revealed in the streetlight, had captured the little boy’s attention.

The evening fell late into fall, and Kurt had, years ago, stopped caring for his lawn. It was the end of October and Kurt’s lawn, like the others of the neighborhood, was dying.

Kurt and the child’s parents watched as the curious child knelt and picked something from Kurt’s barren yard.

It was a dandelion. A late-flowering dandelion.

Dandelions are hearty. They are weeds. Even in late autumn, after the frosts, with the blades withered and leaves fallen, a few can still magically appear.

The boy picked the flower. He smiled. The adults, including Kurt, laughed in amusement.

Kurt was charmed at the sight of this child, in the midst of temptation from all the neighborhood’s treats, stopping to pick a flower.

The boy wobbled to his parents and gifted his mother the flower.

“How sweet,” Kurt thought.

The child’s mother took the flower, then his hand, and said, “Thank you. Now come along and get some candy before it’s too late.”

Kurt, in that moment, wondered what life had in store for such a child.

The family met Kurt at the end of his driveway. He dropped a few morsels of candy in the little boy’s bag, carried by its father.

They thanked Kurt.

Kurt gave a gentle wave and smile to the little boy, dressed as a cat.

At the end of the night, having packed everything away, Kurt was still thinking about that little boy. That little boy, distracted by a lone flower, despite all the enticements from up and down the street.

A single, blooming flower among all the dead lawns of the neighborhood was something to notice. Still, under the circumstances of the other temptations, the lone flower was something most wouldn’t notice.

Kurt understood the distraction of that flower.

Yet, it was only a dandelion. It was still only a weed.

Kurt thought about our minds and how we believe them to be filled with flowers. Flowers of ideas and beliefs. Ideas about ourselves and love and life. Beautiful, fragrant flowers of all we’ve accepted and understood ourselves to be.

“But we’ve got to be careful,” he thought. “Because some flowers are nothing but weeds.”

Weeds can be deceptive. Even the dandelion, after it blossoms, bursts into a glorious, snowy white softness of seeds. Seeds soft and airy enough to fill pillows, nurturing our dreams.

Yet, dandelions are aggressive. Left untamed, they can choke the growth of an entire pasture, otherwise fertile for growing something else.

To a tender mind, the dandelion is a flower. Even for some, long in their years, a dandelion still is.

To others, it’s a charming weed, waiting to spread. Waiting to infest.

Kurt wondered what life had in store for that curious, wandering little boy, costumed as a cat.

He decided, come spring, it might be wise to start tending to his lawn again.