When Nature Says: "I Got You"

 

Every spring, I seed sunflowers like clockwork. It’s part ritual, part rebellion — a promise to myself that something tall, bold, and unapologetically yellow will rise from the dirt no matter what else is falling apart. But this year? I didn’t.

Not out of laziness. Not even out of forgetfulness.
I just couldn’t.
Body said no. Energy said nah. Nervous system said, “Have you seen the humidity index?”

(Yes, I have. Thank you, corn sweat.)

So, I made peace with it. Told myself this would be the Summer of No Sunflowers. Maybe next year. Maybe never. There’s a grief in that, quiet and strange, when you stop doing the things that once rooted you. But here’s the twist:

The sunflowers came anyway.

Uninvited. Unbothered. And not in the beds I so carefully prepped in years prior, either — nope. These rebels popped up outside the lines. Between the weeds, on the unruly patch that functions as our lawn, like they knew I wouldn’t have the bandwidth to fuss over them, so they just handled it.

They are tall. They are loud. They are blooming.

And we didn’t water them. Not once. Why? Because the weather forecast has been one long lie of “super soakers incoming!” that somehow never come. Every week it's like, “Pack your floaties!” and then—nothing. Dust. Regret. A storm-shaped mirage.

Meanwhile, the sunflowers? Thriving. No hose, no help, no problem.
I don’t even know how the seeds survived, honestly. This yard is bird central. Like Hitchcock levels. Any loose seed is usually a snack with wings. But somehow, these sneaky little stragglers made it. Like they heard me sigh one evening and whispered, “Don’t worry. We got this.”

So now I wake up, peek out the door, and I see them — glowing like golden middle fingers to despair.
Or maybe little halos of hope.
Or both.

That’s the thing about sunflowers. They turn toward the light, yes, but they start in the dark. They fight their way through crowded earth and peckish predators. They grow tall not because someone begged them to, but because that’s what they’re wired for.

I used to think I was the one planting hope when I dropped those seeds.
But maybe hope had a backup plan.