Can a Field of Flowers be a “Random Act of Kindness?”
I was having somewhat of a challenging day today. I had a fight with my favorite editor and I lost my favorite uncle so I put my daily walk off until sunset. In the middle of the forest, I came upon a large patch of daffodils surrounding a flat rock, just inviting you to sit a spell. And so I did and a flood of warmth and gratitude came over me and I even got a little choked up. I’m sure they were not planted for folks like me but maybe, but it didn’t matter. It made me very happy and I appreciated them.
And I thought back to a property off I-78 at the Lenhartsville exit that I used to pass multiple times a week when I was life drawing modeling at Kutztown University. The older man who lives there has a field full of thousands and thousands of daffodils and narcissus. ..nearly as many flowers as blades of grass. I know they are there and I know they come up every year but I am completely startled every spring to see them. I am flooded with happiness when I see them. I just imagine him dividing up bulbs and spreading them out over the decades and decades of his life.
So one day, I decided to write him a thank you card and tell him how much joy it brings me as I drive by and how much joy he probably brings hundreds and maybe thousands of people who drive by while they are blooming. And he happened to be home. So I gave him the card and we sat on the porch for awhile and before I left he cut me a huge bouquet of flowers. And I left feeling even better for his Random Act of Kindness.
Posted in: Life's Moments and Lessons
Cindy Ross 
Great story Cindy, thanks.
oh thanks Kris- I miss Yosemite and all you guys- snowy out there? or did spring come yet? i have a freind who is flying to Yosemite next week- what is the elevation of the snowpack?
And your’s too Cindy – how much ddo you think it meant to that man to hear how much his field of flowers meant to you? Really, really a lovely story. Thanks for sharing.
oh thanks Jill- i can’t seem to shut my mind off- i posted twice today- a little obnoxious! i’m going to write a new chapter (or work on one) in the next fewe days at my girlfreidn’s “Writer’s Retreat” or I say “Writer’s Prison” after the second day and I am climbing the walls becuase I am having an internet/e-mail/facebook withdrawl, but hopefully, I ‘ll get more accomplished. Hopefully, the words will keep coming out-as my father used to say (“diarreah of the mouth!”) Be well. and thanks for remarking.
Thank you for this post! It reminded me of my dad. He spent much of his free time working in his flower gardens. A man who had trouble expressing his emotions, showed his inner spirit through the beauty of his gardens. People would stop all of the time to tell him how much joy his gift brought them.
thanks for sharing cutes- how is YOUR garden coming along up there on the First Fork? My husband has a hard time planting anythign he can’t eat- so that goes for flowers. Every Mother’s Day since I became a mother, I get a bush or a tree for the property- if it weren’t for that, we’d have littl ecolor around here!