Growing up I was sent to Catholic school. Not the uniform kind. Not the nuns in habits kind. It was just like a regular school only we had one day of mass every week, religion classes, and our nuns wore regular clothes.
One nun in particular Sister Caroline even played the guitar and sang each week at mass. She had a song in heavy rotation I remember fondly..."Friends are like flowers, beautiful flowers, Friends are like flowers in the garden of love. Are you a daisy are you a rose, are you a dandelion. You can be what you are I'll be what I am, and we can be friends in the garden of love."
Like a parable, the idea was to be a rose! Never a dandelion because they are weeds.
Fast forward to this morning.
My husband and I are sitting on the front porch watching the sunrise and I am looking at the clover popping up through the 3 inches of mulch I put down. So, I asked my husband, "If you could be a plant what would you be?" He looked at me like I had three heads and then said, "A planned?"
Not that he didn't hear me, it is just his accent. Which always makes me smile because it does make us sound a lot like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. "Yes", I said, "a plant".
"Well, I don't want to be grass because everyone will be spraying me with chemicals!"
"I think" I said, "I would like to be a dandelion or clover".
"Then everyone will always be trying to kill you!?" He thought I had lost my mind.
And had I said this to Sister Caroline or Sister Victorien they would have said the something similar because they used the "weed" to demonstrate what is bad, annoying, or wrong behavior. But as I looked down at those weeds growing up through the mulch, I saw perseverance, strength, gumption, fortitude, and tenacity. I saw a living creature with an unstoppable drive to live, grow, and thrive no matter what the conditions.
That is why this morning I decided if I were a plant, I would want to be a dandelion. They have been around for thousands of years and across all continents. Ancient Greek cookbooks have recipes for dandelion tea. My grandmother talked about eating dandelion salad growing up. Dandelions are not a pest but a source of life, health, and sustenance. They can and WILL grow anywhere with any amount of soil, water, and light. They bloom a beautiful yellow puff ball flower that when at its end will keep giving by sending all of itself into the wind to spread its seeds.
Yes, I want to be a dandelion. I want to be able to thrive under the harshest formidable conditions and still bloom. In my last hours I want to spread the seeds of myself out into the world through my children, grandchildren, former students, friends, family, people I came in contact with.
