Lessons in Life: Don't Pick the Flowers

I've always been a person who enjoyed the outdoors, whether it was when I lived in a small town or since I've moved to a rural area. Many things have helped to broaden my perspective on a wide variety of topics since moving to the country. In recent times, I've shared some of these perspective-expanding items and ideas with my grandchildren. Suffice it to say, the only lessons learned are not by the children.

I'm blessed to have daily contact with three of my grandchildren who range in age from 3 years old to 7 years old. We try to venture out into our substantial yard at least once a day to enjoy what Nature offers us there.

We've enjoyed listening to birds, watching birds and working to identify them by sight and sound. It is a lesson in patience for all to quietly sit and listen. Sometimes we use binoculars to aid in our sightings, but most times we use the sensory tools naturally provided to us.

A walk through the front yard one morning was deemed as "boring" by the five-year-old who had no interest in the newly leafed trees and bushes or the flowering plants scattered throughout the lawn. The three-year-old, a free spirit in her own right, was elated, though, by the same things her brother found mundane. The seven-year-old had not yet expressed an opinion--something of a shocker in and of itself.

As the four of us walked through the grass, questions were asked about what is this plant, what is that plant. The three-year-old was quietly walking at the rear, not only picking the stems of flowers that caught her eye, but actually pulling some of the plants up by the roots. She was concerned that we get the flowers into water immediately so they did not die.

I explained to her my philosophy of living things in a very simple manner: Once picked, the flowers were already dead. Better to leave the flowers where they grew so that everyone could enjoy them, including the bees and butterflies who needed the flowers for "bug business." I was certain my granddaughter understood what I explained to her, and felt confident there would be no more flower picking.

We walked a bit further and I noticed the bouquet in her hand was growing in size. I cast her a quizzical look; she looked me in the eye and said, "These flowers are for dancing." She proceeded to dance blithely in ever-widening circles, holding her prizes in outstretched hands. Watching her, in her innocence and reverie, I decided she was just as right as I was. Some flowers are for dancing.

The seven-year-old who sometimes has the mind of one many times his age, asked me what sort of plants I had planted in the yard to get the many different types of flowers we found. I explained I hadn't planted any of them; they had come up on their own, to which he replied, "Then they are weeds."

In the literal sense he was right, and to a seven-year-old mind, the literal sense is the one that matters most often. But still it seemed worth offering yet another way of looking at the same thing and seeing it differently.

I agreed with his assessment and said that many people who valued immaculately groomed yards would bring out the weed killer to try and annihilate these plants, but other people, like he and I, could enjoy the beauty of what Nature had seen fit to put in our yard. In his defense, he did consider that thought for a few seconds before dismissing it with, "But they're still weeds."

I don't know if I will ever change his mind, or if the five-year-old will develop an interest in plants--but I do hope the three-year-old never stops believing that some flowers are for dancing.