The Flower

First grade went on a field trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens. The kid each brought home pamphlets to identify wildflowers in Arizona, a name tag, and a precious paper envelope containing flower seeds.

Hyrum was thrilled with his treasure. He begged Brad to get him a pot and help him plant his seeds. Hyrum is seven years old, and I never thought he would be responsible enough to take care of a pot of dirt.

I was wrong. He watered those seeds and watched them every day until they sprouted. He measured them when he left for school in the morning and knew which ones had grown (and how much) while he was gone. It was the wrong time of the year for wildflower seeds, and they struggled along in their hot spot on the front porch. The shoots began to shrivel, one by one, and in the end, only one gangly stem remained.

Lily called it a weed and threatened to pull it up, but Hyrum defended his one remaining plant, willing it to flower and prove his sister wrong.

I would have given up on this pot, but not Hyrum. Almost two months from the day he had planted his seeds, Hyrum burst through the front door, and his shrieks brought me running.

"Mom! Mom! Come quick!!!!"

Two buds topped his sun-starved and heat-beaten stalk. He had grown a flower.

He was so proud that he begged me to take a picture, and  I sent him outside with my camera. Can you see him in the window's reflection?

Not everything withers and dies in the desert heat, and Hyrum's dogged determination was just what this little seed needed to grow--blistering summer notwithstanding.