A dear friend gave me a pot of blooming pansies in mid-April during the first year of the pandemic. I don’t usually grow pansies because most cultivars fade out once the warm summer weather arrives. I carefully tended to those flowers and they brought me so much joy at a time when the world felt like it was turning upside-down. The flowers lasted well into August.
Two years later some of the seeds from those flowers somehow made it into the crack of soil between our north-facing garage slab and driveway—at least 50 feet away from where my friend’s gift sat blooming all summer in 2020. Those seeds sprouted this spring, and I didn’t lift a finger to assist them. They have bloomed throughout the spring and summer and now even into late September. They sit under a roof overhang, so I’m not even sure how they’ve gotten enough moisture to thrive, but thrive they have.
Besides brightening up an ugly spot, they have been a metaphor for mental toughness for me as we all continue to navigate the trials and the changes that have happened to us and our world since 2020.
I hope they’ll come back again next year.