Don't Pick the Flowers

I’ve always loved being outside. As a child, I used to name the flowers that grew in our yard. I would spend so much time naming them, and then trying to remember all the names. It was kind of frustrating to tell you the truth because I’d always forget one or two of the names. And even if I could keep them straight for a whole day, the very next morning everything looked a little different—some flowers were gone, some were bent over from wind or rain, and some new ones were just opening up. I think you would agree that naming flowers is what one might call “an exercise in futility”.

I also loved to paint flowers. I don’t mean paint them onto a piece of paper or canvas, the way an artist usually does. I mean I would literally paint on the flowers themselves—like the playing-card people did in “Alice in Wonderland”. The type of flowers that I usually chose to name and paint looked like small white stars on delicate green stems. They’re considered weeds. 

One day, after I’d spent the morning naming and painting the weeds in our yard, I went into my house for some reason or other. When I came back outside, I was horrified to find my older brother picking all my flower-friends. As you might expect I shrieked and yelled, “Don’t pick the flowers!” “They’re weeds, Amy,” my brother responded, sounding annoyed. “Mom told me to pick them.” I can still remember the scene. His back was to me as he bent over those flowers. So… I hit him over the head with a big stick and he fell face first into the flowers. That’s not the response you expected, is it? My brother didn’t expect it either and honestly neither did I. Next time I talk to my brother I need to ask him if I really knocked him out that day or if he was only pretending. Also, did my mom really tell him to pick those weeds? Debatable.

Regardless of the answers to those questions, I got in a lot of trouble that day, because my mom wasn’t okay with one of her kids knocking the other out with a big stick. It’s one of the signs of a good mom. And I guess I must have learned my lesson because I never knocked anyone out with a stick ever again. My brother learned his lesson too—sweet little girls who name and paint flowers carry a big stick. (Just a side note: my brother is the kindest natured human you could imagine. He didn’t deserve to be whacked in the head—even for picking my flower-friends. But he did get me back later when he ran over me with his bike.)

~Amy