When Someone Doesn’t See What You See
Field Study No.15
Place: The shared courtyard garden at home
Witnesses: Suel and the gardeners
Focus: love, attention, unseen meaning, what remains, and becoming
Arrival
Arriving home from work, I passed through the shared courtyard garden and noticed the gardeners trimming the large shrubs.
Laced between the shrubs was a mixture of dahlias.
The tubers had arrived together in one large bag, without individual labels, so we did not yet know which variety was growing in each place.
The dahlias had been marked with small white tags, each one carefully placed beside a plant still finding its way above the soil.
Together, my neighbor on the other side of the courtyard and I planned to identify and label each one as the flowers revealed themselves.
I was hoping one of them might be Linda’s Baby, in honor of my sister Linda.
Some were only beginning.
Some had grown tall enough to be noticed.
I believed the tags would be enough.
A small sign asking the world to move carefully around what was still becoming.
Observation
When I looked more closely, I realized several of the dahlias were no longer standing where I had watched them grow.
Some had been pulled from the soil.
Others had been stepped on or pressed beneath the work happening around them.
Only two appeared untouched.
The small white tags were still there, but the meaning behind them had not been seen.
I explained that the tags marked flowers we were waiting to identify. These were not weeds or stray growth between the shrubs. They were dahlias, planted with care and watched closely as they emerged.
I pointed to the places where they had been growing.
To them, the plants may have looked small, unfinished, or easy to overlook.
To me, each one held possibility.
And one of them might have carried my sister’s name.
The Turn
After I explained what the white tags meant, the gardeners looked again.
The two largest dahlias were placed back into the soil.
They were not as they had been before. One stood uncertainly. The tallest leaned and drooped, carrying the weight of what had happened.
But they were returned to the garden.
When I looked more carefully, I found signs that three others might still be beneath the soil.
Their growth had disappeared from view, but the tubers remained hidden below ground.
Time would have to tell us what was still alive.
And then there were the two dahlias closest to our home.
They had not been touched.
Still standing.
Still growing.
The garden had been disturbed, but it had not been emptied.
Something remained above the soil.
Something remained beneath it.
And something in me began to soften around that truth.
What Did This Place Say to Us?
Not everyone sees the same garden.
One person may see shrubs to trim, weeds to remove, and ground to clear.
Another may see weeks of waiting.
A flower chosen in love.
A small white tag holding a quiet request:
Please notice this.
Please be careful here.
The gardeners did not know the stories attached to those dahlias.
They did not know that one might bloom with my sister Linda’s name.
They did not know what else my heart was carrying that day.
But perhaps this is true far beyond a garden.
We move through the world beside people carrying meanings we cannot see.
A plant may be more than a plant.
A place may hold the presence of someone deeply loved.
A small object may become a way of keeping that love close.
What appears ordinary from the outside may be holding an entire story.
The garden reminded me that love changes the way we notice.
It asks us to protect what is tender.
It teaches us to recognize life even when it is small, unfinished, or hidden beneath the surface.
And when someone does not see what we see, we may need to pause and show them.
Not everyone will understand completely.
But sometimes, when we explain what love has placed there, they look again.
Closing Reflection
The garden did not return to exactly what it had been.
Some stems were bent.
Some growth disappeared.
Some answers remain beneath the soil.
There is comfort in what survives.
There is hope in what has not yet revealed itself.
Love does not always protect us from loss, but it teaches us how to keep looking for life.
So we will wait.
We will watch the soil.
We will notice every new leaf.
And when the flowers finally open, we will meet each one with the care it was always meant to receive.
