With visions of an eye-catching row of tall sunflowers towering over the fence in my backyard, I carefully placed the seeds I had harvested from last summer’s blooms in a row of dirt along the fence line. I watered the area regularly and looked forward to the spectacular wall of yellow petals I would soon see every time I stepped outside.

Exactly one seed in that row I planted took root. And it didn’t grow tall. It barely made it past the middle section of the fence. It was still beautiful, in its own solitary way. But it was not what I had imagined.

A few feet away from my modest mid-fencer, the Mexican sunflower plant my friend Sarah Docter Williams gave me last year was three times the size of my single sunflower plant – and it has continued to produce a generous supply of new bright orange flowers nearly every day.

I came upon this overachieving plant serendipitously. Last summer, when I complimented the Mexican sunflowers in her front yard, Sarah instinctively dug up a few baby plants, stuck them in a plastic grocery bag with some dirt and told me to put them in the ground where they would get lots of sun (Sarah is a very knowledgeable and generous gardener). I followed her instructions – and within weeks, I had beautiful Mexican sunflowers that bloomed consistently until the weather turned cold. I let the plant stalks wither and disintegrate into the earth and forgot about them until their green leaves started poking through the mulch in late May. I did nothing to cultivate them, but they returned – even larger than last year – on their own.

It’s a tale of two sunflowers. One is breathtaking, yet short-lived; the other is less remarkable, but abundant and enduring.  

Both plants are beautiful in their own colorful way, but the iconic, tall yellow sunflowers – the ones that fascinated impressionist painters like Vincent Van Gogh, the ones you see highlighted in the landscape of southern France during televised coverage of the Tour de France – require someone to re-plant their seeds every year and they only bloom once. One flower, one season – and they won’t come back unless you make the effort. Maybe it’s their transience that makes them so alluring?

Mexican sunflowers on the other hand are reliable and predictable perennials. Once they have a foothold in your soil, they will come back on their own each year, as if they have always lived there. They radiate with vibrant color, they attract butterflies, and they look great as a centerpiece for a dinner party. In that way, they are a lot like your family – or good friends who have traveled through a few seasons of life with you. You can count on them, they brighten up your landscape, and their foothold in your life is deep and lasting.

I have to admit, I was truly disappointed that I didn’t see a harvest of bold yellow sunflowers from the seeds I planted. I was going for the “wow” factor (and yes, I was hoping to take awesome photos and post them on social media). But I think that little half-sized sunflower plant taught me a full-sized lesson about seeing the beauty right in front of me instead of being distracted by the elusive appeal of bright, shiny new things.

Last weekend, I connected with my two younger brothers and their families in Cocoa Beach – yes, the same place Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden made famous with in the TV series, “I Dream of Jeannie”. Although we grew up together with my other five siblings in the same home, with the same parents, we each live very different lives now and don’t see each other very much anymore. John lives eight hours away in south Florida and Peter lives in Idaho.

When we do get together once or twice a year, though, it’s as if no time has passed since we were little kids living under the same roof. A comfortable familiarity sets in almost immediately as we lapse into our traditional sibling roles, re-telling the same old stories and laughing about the stupid things we used to do.

That family bond was particularly poignant for me this time, because we had lost our stepmom Joan the month before – and she was the last remaining plank in the bridge between us kids and our mortality. That realization cast my sibling relationships in a new, more precious light. We are plants from the same root stock, connected for life. A role no one else can play.

It’s the same with enduring friendships that have withstood the tests of time. You can’t replace the people who know your history first-hand. The ones who have seen you grow and change over time, the people who have celebrated the good times with you and held your hand while you mourned your losses. Those lived experiences can’t be recreated, even if we try to replant the same seeds with new people.

Like my Mexican sunflowers, those relationships continue to add beauty and color to my life. They keep me rooted and grounded and sustain my growth.

I won’t stop trying to grow big audacious sunflowers, but I plan to keep the lessons I learned from this year’s single flower harvest in my back pocket so I never take for granted the extraordinary beauty staring right at me in the ordinary and dependable.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. (Proverbs 17:17)