Sunflower Joy

Sunflower, originally uploaded by confections.

The Dog Days of Summer are here, although it has been quite comfortable here in Southern California lately. Nothing says summer to me in such a playful way as a riotous sunflower bloom.

This one was part of a thickly planted patch in a local neighborhood that I spied while driving by. I could not resist stopping and documenting its beauty. If you look closely you can see a few bees enjoying its nectar.

During the last summer of my Dad's life (1991), he grew a spectacular sunflower in his garden in Pennsylvania which was easily twice the diameter of the center of this bloom (perhaps 12 inches to this one's 6). We had given him the seeds in the spring and he nurtured his prize with his secret fertilizer--gray water from the kitchen dishpan.

A few days after his untimely accidental death that September, we harvested the sunflower and kept the seeds. My sister fashioned a wire-wrapped charm bracelet for me that included one of the seeds.

My father reveled in nature and it is poignant to me that this last triumph in his garden yielded hollow seed-shells. That sunflower would not be replicated--an irony not lost on his children and family, who still feel his loss, but are uplifted and reminded of him when a sunflower shows its joyous face.