{"id":11749,"date":"2016-05-28T06:15:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T11:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=11749"},"modified":"2016-05-28T06:15:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T11:15:27","slug":"lucas-and-the-dandelion-bouquet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2016\/05\/28\/lucas-and-the-dandelion-bouquet\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucas and the dandelion bouquet"},"content":{"rendered":"

L<\/span>ucas and I are walking home from school on a brilliant, warm late spring afternoon that feels more like mid-summer. As we come up the hill to our house, I notice the elderly lady from down the street and think that in the nearly six years we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lived on the street, this is the first time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen her by herself.<\/p>\n

She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite elderly, probably over eighty. I often see her walking carefully on her husband\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arm as they make their way patiently to the stop sign at the end of the street and back again. I watch her as we approach from behind, and she is slowly walking the length of our lawn, picking yellow dandelions. I feel a mild tremor of concern, seeing her by herself. I know she is frail, and I wonder where her husband is.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to startle her as we come up behind her, so I speak softly as we approach. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you find any good ones?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I ask with a smile, nodding toward the straggly handful of dandelions she is holding.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, you probably think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m crazy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she replies with a sheepish shrug, and I can see that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s older even than I expected, her blue eyes slightly red and rheumy.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Of course not!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I assure her with a smile. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We pick dandelions all the time, right Luke?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I cast a quick glance up the street, hoping to see her husband standing at the end of their driveway, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see him. She seems to be okay, though, and after a moment of pleasant small talk I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d just decided to turn up our driveway and leave her to make her way home when Lucas pipes up.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here you go!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says with a smile, and my heart sings with pride. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s handing her a big bouquet of quickly-picked dandelions from our yard. Tears come immediately to my eyes. My sweet, sweet baby boy. He holds the dandelions out unselfconsciously, and she takes them carefully, like the treasure they are.<\/p>\n

\"dandelion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lucas and I are walking home from school on a brilliant, warm late spring afternoon that feels more like mid-summer. As we come up the hill to our house, I notice the elderly lady from down the street and think that in the nearly six years we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lived on the street, this is the first … Continue reading “Lucas and the dandelion bouquet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lucas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11751,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749\/revisions\/11751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}