On Thoughtlessness: My Children's Sadness

When Marissa died, sunflowers that we had planted were blooming. There were a few neat stories about those sunflowers. This is, unfortunately not one of them.

We saved the seeds from last years batch of sunflowers, and on Mother's day this year, we planted those we harvested. The sunflowers did not all grow. We had about a third of what we planted come up, but one of them--the largest one--was dubbed the "Marissa Sunflower" and we have watched them grow. A few weeks ago, they finally grew heads. Due to the drought this summer, their growth was stunted, and we were concerned that they would not flower before Marissa's birthday this year.

Last night we discovered that someone had come and either broken off the plants at the stalk, or snapped the newly formed buds off of the plants.

Someone thought it was funny. My children were crushed.
It was an ongoing memorial to their sister. Its like sitting on or knocking over gravestones. There were many tears.

My six year old son wanted the persons responsible to have their heads cut off. My seven year old kept asking "How would they feel if it happened to them?"

To process this, I had the kids draw pictures of how the event made them feel. This is the result.


The first image is from my six year old son.