Loving Levi

He brought me sunflowers when he picked me up for our first date.

The sunflower is kind of our flower. It’s nothing against any other flower; it’s just that for the past five years, sunflowers have been in great abundance in our lives. Looking back, I’m not quite sure how it became tradition to give each other sunflowers; it just happened. Ever since that first date, both of us have only given each other sunflowers. There have been no roses or lilies or any other kind of flower given.

For my sixteenth birthday, he bought me sunflowers. For his sixteenth birthday, I bought him sunflowers. For every birthday since the same thing has happened. For each of our anniversaries we have bought each other sunflowers.

The sunflowers (or Helianthus annuus, their scientific name, as Levi likes to remind me) are kind of expected now, and Levi knows that. We’ve talked about it; we’ve laughed about it, actually. I told him that even though I expect them, I still appreciate them very much and I certainly don’t love them any less.

Even so, I have to admit that the unexpected sunflowers mean the most to me in the long run. Like the time he and I went for a walk and he picked one off the side of the road. Or the time he bought me some just because I was stressing about one of my finals and he wanted me to know how much he believed in me. Or the time I woke up to find a whole bouquet of them outside my door, with a note attached saying that he loved me.

As a child, Levi’s favorite color was yellow, and he would search the world around him for all the yellow things in it. The story goes, as told by his mother, that when Levi was two he discovered a sunflower in his grandmother’s neighborhood while on a walk. By the age of seven he knew so much about sunflowers that he was featured in an article in the local newspaper. In school, Levi was considered gifted, and like most gifted students, he became a specialist in a certain topic; his was, obviously, sunflowers.

Levi is a botany major, with a specialty in angiosperms, or flowering plants. In high school, Levi had trouble connecting with people, both because of his autism (which is a disorder having to do with communication) and because, just like every other high school, there was a social hierarchy and the “geeks” were at the bottom. Once Levi got to college, though, he found people who were just as “geeky” as him and he felt like he finally could fit in.

Last year, Levi was bored and looked up the meaning of sunflowers. It was no surprise that sunflowers are considered the happiest of flowers, but he was surprised to find out that sunflowers symbolize loyalty and longevity. I still remember when he found this out. We were sitting in the living room of my house (it was summer and we were back home) and he was sitting on the floor on his iPad. I was laying on the couch, playing around on my laptop. We had been sitting in silence for about twenty minutes, and suddenly Levi jumped up. It scared me, and I jumped a little in my seat. Levi turned to me, and with the biggest smile on his face, said, “Did you know that sunflowers symbolize loyalty and longevity?” I told him that I did not know that. Something seemed to come over Levi, and his expression changed. He leaned down and kissed me, and said, “That’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? It fits our relationship perfectly.” It hit me then that he was right. It was in that moment that I knew that if, and hopefully when, Levi asked me to marry him, I would say yes.

The flowers at our wedding would be sunflowers, obviously.