The end of summer had come.
The fields had grown quiet — no more bees or wasps buzzing, only the deep, muffled sound of the harvesters breaking the stillness of the morning.
They had come to reap what had once been golden and alive: the sunflowers, now turned dark brown in the late summer sun.
The landscape had changed.
Where there had been color and motion, now only dry, bare stalks stood — sharp, unyielding, merciless.
And that was when my mother and I would set out.
It wasn’t a walk, and not quite a trip either.
Head down, bent over, wearing gloves, we gathered what the machines had left behind.
The rough stalks scratched and burned, their hardness cutting even through our clothes.
But we knew every single seed mattered.
When we spoke, it was only to say whose sunflower head was larger that day.
That tiny competition made even this exhausting work somehow exciting.
We would cut off the heads with a knife and collect them in a sack.
When it was full, we tied it up, placed it on the bicycle, and pushed it all the way home.
But even at home, the work wasn’t done.
The seeds had to be knocked out of the heads — though along with them came all sorts of bits and pieces of dry plant matter.
Mom would clean them by letting the wind do the work.
When it blew outside, she’d take a handful of seeds, raise her hand about half a meter, and slowly let them fall.
The heavy seeds dropped into the bowl; the light bits of stalk drifted away with the breeze.
As a child, I was fascinated by that motion — so simple, yet so graceful, so sure.
There was always something quietly elegant about the way my mother moved.
We sold most of the sunflower seeds, keeping only the largest ones for ourselves — to roast and snack on during the winter evenings.
That was our little treat, a reward at the end of cold days.
I didn’t like gathering them.
I was small; the heat, the dust, the aches in my hands and feet all made me tired.
But over time, I realized — it wasn’t really about the seeds at all.
It was about being there.
Together.
With my mother.
Whether silent or talking — it didn’t matter.
What mattered was the moment.
The being side by side.
The look we shared when the sack was full, and the smile when the first handful popped in the pan, the warm, crackling sound filling the kitchen as we ate the seeds quietly, happily.
And now, so many years later, when I sit with a small bag of roasted sunflower seeds, tasting their warmth,
the flavor of the past comes back, too.
The silence.
The dusty ground.
The sharp stalks.
The safety of being together.
They don’t sting anymore.
Now, they only warm —
just like the memory. 🌻
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