Sunflowers & Brian
June 20, 2024
I have vivid memories of my son Brian’s cat, with his very yellow stripes. He was often called “Sunny.” His coloring and his penchant for batting the large petals of a sunflower earned him the name. The cat would swat at the “ray flowers” as they are called, until the petals flew down one by one, and Sunny seemed to count them and pretend they were birds.
Sunflower Antics
Brian watched, laughed, and clapped, even as he coughed and shed “allergy tears” that almost blocked his vision.
June 20, 1972, was the last possible day my son would relive his beloved cat’s sunflower antics. At only nine years old, Brian was swept down the Inn River in Austria that afternoon.
“Heart petals”
June 20, 2024. Memory of Brian, Sunny, and the sunflowers surges through me. Instantly, my pocket of happiness bursts with every detail of Brian’s love for his cat and the flowers. My most precious memory is of him counting the petals the cat dropped and telling Sunny that if he had batted down the whole flower, that still would be billions short of the “heart petals” he would carry forever for his friend.
—Janice Jensen