I love sunflowers.

I love the way the orange and yellow combine to make a near perfect color.

The way the center looks like the perfect place to see a honey bee keeping the world alive.

Sunflowers are about the only flower that can make my heart ache with sadness when they die.

They get so sad.

The once cheerful bright centers droop down toward the ground, and looks more fitting for a funeral than the quintessential funeral flower choices.

They become depressing.

Most flowers will do this when they wilt.

I mean if you think about it putting them in a vase on top of your table is a slow calculated murder.

We give them water, but eventually it will not sustain them.

They have been ripped from the ground that kept them alive.

Put on a table to make us smile for a week or so.

I wonder if in flower land it is a form of torture, or they just feel honored to die for our pleasure?

There is something about a sunflower droopy in a vase that is so much sadder than any other flower.

Maybe it’s because they are so much bigger and grander than other flowers.

They beam with so much joy when they are freshly cut.

I like sunflowers because they highlight life’s reality.

Some days we are so bright that people who encounter us can’t help but smile.

Other days we have lost our place in the sunlight line, and droop down in our own sadness.

Lucky for us we aren’t really sunflowers and can pick ourselves back up.

Once the droop sets into one of the flowers they just end up as compost.