Dandelion

My children loved Lisa Atkinson’s Tickle the Fish album. We first had it as a cassette tape and then later bought it as a CD. My girls have long since grown up and they still enjoy listening to the CD. I, recently, had to retrieve it from them. I would listen to Tickle the Fish many times over when I was feeling defeated by life. Lisa’s uplifting songs brought me back from many a dreary day. One song in particular, “Dandelion”, I would listen to over and over again. “They’re as special as you and me.” Lisa had the ability to look at life through a child’s eyes simplifying it and making it still worth living.
So on this fateful day, early in the morning, I noticed a dandelion on the lawn. I rejoiced, feeling it was just for me. Later in the day, the seeds had blown away. “Awwh,” I thought, “They’re gone already.” But really the seeds went off to grow and multiply. That evening, I found out from a friend that Lisa had died earlier in the year. It was like the dandelion told me. Like the dandelion seeds spreading everywhere, Lisa spread joy through her singing which grew and multiplied.
Sometime later, amid yet another crisis, I was walking around my neighborhood in the middle of the night trying to sort things out. When I finally returned home, there on the corner of the grass was a single dandelion. As I cried, I looked up to the sky and said, “Thank you Lisa,” I now could go back inside for some much needed sleep.
The next morning the dandelion was still there standing strong. My problems weren’t solved, but with the affirmation of the strength of the dandelion, I knew I could be strong and carry on and embrace life as it should be full of dandelions….“They’re as special as you and me.”