My two-year-old son brought me a daffodil yesterday.

“Oh, I love it! Thank you!” I said, breathing in its sweet scent.

“Want to smell?” I extended it to him. 

“It melfs like sunshine,” he said as he squished it to his nose. His curls are sweaty, and his cheeks are red, and I can’t help but think he looks like a child Michelangelo painted at some point. 

“Yes baby, it does smell like sunshine.” I smiled.

A few weeks before, I had told him that's how I thought daffodils smelled. I can’t believe he remembered! He soon scampered off after his sisters and I was left alone. What he will he remember— if anything— from this time in his life? I wonder how he’ll remember me. 

I hope somehow, he’ll always think daffodils smell like sunshine, even if he can’t remember why. 

Life is like this, I think. It can feel like carrying a bouquet of words, some soft and some thorny, that others have given us along the way. Perhaps they were given with the intent to encourage or perhaps with the intent to harm, either way we must decide how to carry them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood lately and remembering some of the words others spoke to me. One from a friend’s father as he affirmed my love of life and enjoying it to its fullest. That felt good, like he gave me a gift of permission. Then to another memory of my mom’s friend who loved my sense of fashion. That felt new and yet exciting, like standing in heels for the first them. Fast forward to another, when someone, somewhere said I was a leader and had something to offer the world. That felt exhilarating, yet terrifying.

Yet then, there are many, many words that felt like harm. Words either intended or ill-destined to destroy. A 4-H leader asking, “where I went so school?” when I had spelled the word “photography” with an “f.” I had to prove I wasn’t dumb after that. Another when I was made fun of for my nose. What could I do about that? Yet another when I received such harsh criticism for my writing, I believed I would never recover and never write again.

Yet here we are, persisting still. I don't doubt that some of the things I carry aren't nearly as thorny as yours, but they poked me and festered nonetheless. 

Sometimes we don’t remember who said them or why, but we often remember how they made us feel. I’m realizing a startling truth: all that does not heal, harms.

Sometimes that harming is for a purpose, and it would be a grave mistake to equate discomfort with harm, as some truths are uncomfortable to bear, yet necessary for our growth. That kind, if let to do its job, can blossom and bear fruit. However, I’m not talking about the "good kind of pain."I'm talking about the kind that is destined for harm, which curdles and throbs. Those false "truths" about ourselves that we clutch to so very tightly, even as they sting and bite. Just like that, we let the thorns eclipse the flowers in our bouquet of the words we carry.

What if we let them go? What if we let those harmful words drop so our hands can heal? What if we dared to reject them as false?

Yes, we carry words within our chest from different voices and with different intents, yet it is our choice to carry them still. May we have the courage to know the difference between what to carry and what to discard. Our hands can hold beauty or they can hold thorns, the choice is ours.