Sunflowers

I think I planted them once, and yet here they are again.  Even though I planned and executed raised beds to eliminate weeds in our existing garden, I still can't bring myself to pull them out.  I let them grow inches, then feet, anticipating their bright faces which follow the sun until summer comes to a close.  But then, one day while I was tending to the bird baths and feeders, thinking of nothing at all, enjoying the bliss of a nothing-to-do day, the kids happily playing in the garden at a game of their invention, I glanced up and realized their game was decimation.  All but six of the self-seeded picnic-for-birds had been ripped out by the roots.  In July, not even the middle of it.  "Why did you do that?!" a sadness settling in my gut and on their faces; how can I explain this?  There aren't words for why I even care with which I can help our children understand.  So, I dig holes, put them back in the ground, and the kids just watch.  I say nothing.  There's nothing to say--it wasn't malicious.  In fact, they say they were in the way of the other plants, which they were, admittedly, but I want their wildness, both of theirs:  children and flowers to seed itself like kindness.  So, later, I tell them this, "Ask yourself, is it kind?  If the answer is no, don't do it."  It's plain; it' simple.  The sunflowers will come back, or they won't.  It doesn't really matter, but knowing how to set your own circadian rhythm to the heliotropism of kindness will make more that just your own days brighter.