Dandelion Day

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--that’s what Jackson whispered in my ear with a boyish wink before speeding down the hill in front of us. We were barely nine years old the first time I heard those words. His jacket flew open as he cast his arms open wide, his chest free to the air, his shoulders thrown back and square. It wasn’t so much a choice as an obligation that my own feet inevitably followed his path, ten steps behind.

At the bottom of the hill he stopped and waited and searched. When I finally caught up to him, windswept and grinning, I too stopped and waited and searched. As children, this moment held a weight I didn’t understand--as if my next days, next months, next year depended solely on the decision I made right then. 

Jackson found his dandelion first. He always did; he had an eye for it. He exclaimed a soft “Ah-ha!” and snatched it up in curiously gentle palms, then turned to me with an expectant grin. Panicked, I too grabbed a dandelion, though mine, after all of my careful deliberation, was chosen at random. 

Then we closed our eyes, blocking out the shining sun, the blue sky, the hundreds of thousands of other dandelions spread in the vast field surrounding us. I never knew what he wished for, but I always wished for him. 

And when I opened my eyes, he would already be staring at me, waiting for me, and no matter how old or innocent or lost we were, my heart always skipped a beat. Then he blew--fast, hard, with strength, and without a doubt every last white seed disappeared from his dandelion, and his wish, of course, would have to come true.

 But when I blew--fast, hard, with every last bit of strength I had--I didn’t manage to get every last seed. As my heart sank, knowing that my wish would remain nothing but a wish, I met Jackson’s eye again, and his own triumphant smile changed to one of comfort. He dropped his stem as if it never even mattered, and he stepped closer, and gave one last final blow, and my remaining seeds disappeared. 

“It’s okay,” he said, “No one will ever even know.”

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--he said it again when we were thirteen. Of course, he had said it exactly three other times since then, on this exact day each time. It was an accident when we were ten, returning on the same day, May 27th, as we had the year previously. Now it was our own special holiday.

I rolled my eyes at him, as I was suddenly apt to do, and turned away. For a while we sat in silence. I closed my eyes, found music in the softly swaying grass, the chirping birds overhead, the buzzing of the bees. The sun beat down heavily on my skin. Robotically, I found myself picking dandelions, making the same wish, and blowing off the seeds. I never managed to blow them all off. 

It was only when he got to his feet that I broke from my trance, turning to watch him. His hair was longer now than it was four years ago, and his jeans were torn at the knees. Despite his more rugged appearance, the sunlight made him glow. He held a hand out to me, pulling me up, and I raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

Then he threw his head back and began to spin.

“What are you doing?” I laughed. The smile that lit up my face then was only for him. 

“Creating new beginnings!” he said. He continued to spin without holding back. It made sense to me a few moments later though, and I found myself joining him--because as we spun, we kicked up dandelion seeds. They caught in the air and the wind carried them off, off to new beginnings. 

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--Jackson whispered it again, but this time we were seventeen and it made my heart race. All in the space of one second I noted that he looked pale in the sunlight today, that when I was this close I could easily see dark bags beneath his eyes. He was standing less than a foot away though, and his face was close, and then my brain turned to mush--

He stepped even closer, so close I could feel his breath, and still I only moved when I noticed his sneaker had pushed aside a dandelion, causing several of the white seeds to float up into the air. His sneakers were torn apart and his jeans were so tattered I briefly wondered how they even remained together. I was just making my wish, the wish I always made, when I looked up again and his lips caught mine.

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--those were the words I ached to hear instead, at eighteen. Jackson was holding my hand in his, and despite the angry thrumming in my ears, the tears falling steadily down my cheeks, the sun still managed to peek through thick clouds. His face showed nothing of his previous boyhood. There was no mischievous wink behind his eyes, no sense of freedom behind his smile. In fact, the smile he was giving me now looked nothing more than a pained grimace. 

He pulled me into a hug then, but even this close there were all those ugly words between us--It’s cancer, Laine. Words I couldn’t bear to hear--leukemia. It was all so typical and cliche and I hated the world and myself for being so weak and I hated that he was putting on a brave face and I hated that I was helpless and I hated that there was a small part of me already questioning how I would ever survive without him and--I’ll be okay, I promise. 

I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe it so bad I would have spent everyday for the rest of my life picking dandelions and wishing it to be true. But when I pulled back, and Jackson weakly smiled, he looked so pale, and so worn out, and I couldn’t help but wonder. I couldn’t help but question what this new beginning might mean.  

Dandelion Day is about new beginnings--those were the words that finally convinced me when I was nineteen. They came from Jackson’s dry and tired lips, and although they were quiet, they seemed to hold all the weight in the world. They broke my heart and mended it again all in the same beat. 

It was those words that brought me back to our field. It was cold for late May, and the sun made its best effort to peer through the clouds, but mostly, the field felt empty. I sat on top of our hill and looked out over the dandelions. They too seemed to cast foreboding shadows. Our field was still alive, but it looked different somehow. Felt different somehow. 

It was those words that echoed in my head as I closed my eyes and let a sudden brief episode of warm sunlight wash over me. Ten minutes from here, Jackson lay in a hospital bed, deteriorating faster than the doctors had hoped. I think he knew what was coming. I think that’s why he sent me here today, and that was why I came. 

It was peaceful somehow, the loneliness of the field. The emptiness. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it was long enough for the clouds to thicken enough that the sun could no longer surface. 

I picked up two dandelions before I left. They were chosen carefully, with the exact amount of care as if I was still nine years old and it mattered more than anything else in the world. 

First, I made Jackson’s wish. Make my wish for me, he had said. I argued. I couldn’t know his wish. If I knew, it wouldn’t come true. It’s okay, he returned, No one will ever even know.

I wished for myself. He told me he had always wished for me. My heart burned as I blew, and every seed disappeared, of course, because he had always had me. From day one, I had always been his. I would be his until the day he died.

I dropped the stem after watching the seeds float away, then held up my own flower. In turn, I made the same wish I had made 10 times before. I wished for him. This time, I wished for him differently. 

A single seed remained stuck to the seed head. 

-

When May 27th rolled around the next year, I did not return to the dandelion field. In fact, it wasn’t until September two years after Jackson passed away that I finally found myself trekking up the hill. 

I was twenty-one now, and life was different and upside down and usually made no sense at all. But I was leaving and moving on now, and though I usually felt like I didn’t understand the world, I understood Jackson. I understood that he wouldn’t want me to continue hurting for him, not when there was a life out there that I should be living.

I took a deep breath. Looked out across the field. September 4th was cloudy and cold and the sun didn’t even seem to make an effort to show. There weren’t many dandelions anymore, as it was almost autumn. The few that remained were wilted or dead. Another deep breath.

This would be my final Dandelion Day, and that was okay. 

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t May 27th, or that Jackson wasn’t here, or that even the dandelions were few and far between. Dandelion Day had never been about the day. May 27th was just an arbitrary date on the calendar. 

So, as I had watched happen a hundred times before, I took a final deep breath, smiled for what felt like the first time in months, and began to run. I didn’t stop at the bottom of the hill, I didn’t stop as my shoes caught on the long tangles of grass, I didn’t stop as air ripped from my lungs. I didn’t stop, aching with the knowledge that this would be my last time in this field, the last time I ached at the memory of him. I let myself be free. There was a sudden, unexpected burst of sunlight, and I found that I was laughing, and I was missing him, but also--I was okay. I missed him, but it was okay.

 Like always, Dandelion Day was about new beginnings, even if the dandelions had died.