How Flowers Color Our Lives (and When to Let Them Die)
A Lesson in Resilience
When my husband and I were dating back in the early 2000s, he tried to get me flowers on numerous occasions. I’ve shared this before, but I’m strange in many ways. I don’t like flowers because they aggravate my allergies, and they always die. So I asked for chocolate instead. Yes, that also disappears quickly, but the enjoyment factor is much higher.
We’ve been married for over sixteen years now. When he wants to do something extra special or unexpected, he gets me houseplants—or, on one occasion, spruces up the flower bed. There was that houseplant this past summer that I managed to kill, but I still have the beautiful pot it came in, so that counts for something.
For years, I saw flowers as temporary and kind of pointless. Pretty, sure, but doomed. I wasn’t entirely wrong, but I also wasn’t looking closely enough. The older I get, the more I realize flowers weren’t the problem.
My mindset was.
Flowers aren’t wasteful; they’re witnesses of resilience.
Wildflowers have changed how I see things. They thrive almost anywhere and don’t need perfect soil or careful tending. They don’t show up in neat little rows or curated gardens, yet they make entire hillsides breathtaking. Their beauty isn’t controlled or coordinated. It just is.
What looks like death in colder months is far from the end for them. While everything appears dry and lifeless, they’re quietly deepening their roots.
The work that matters most happens where no one sees it.
The flowers we cling to the hardest are often the ones we were never meant to keep alive. Not everything in our lives is meant to be nurtured just to appear “in bloom.” Some things need to end so that something stronger, truer, and a little more wild can grow in their place.
I’m still learning from these small but stubborn beauties, and it’s reshaping the way I view growth, seasons, and letting go.
Be a wildflower, not a wallflower.