10/23/2026
While on hospice, you asked for sunflowers. Those flowers are woven into our love story.
Dear Brock,
You were in bed, in your final days, and all you asked for were sunflowers.
We had gone to two sunflower festivals in our new state. At Okeefe farms in Vancouver.
You always took so many pictures of me. We went to your last sunflower festival a month before you died.
The girls went looking every day until they finally got some bouquets. . You wanted them from the exact farm we had gone to.
When we showed them to you, you smiled. They were so proud that they had made you smile, even in those heartbreaking final days.
We placed them on your nightstand, the window sill, and your alter.
After you died, we adorned your body with those sunflowers. We tucked them all around you as we said goodbye.
Watching those flowers wilt and die broke my heart. Each day bringing me farther from you.
On your nightstand, the water dried up. The flowers molded. The dust collected.
It took me 10 months to finally clean those dead flowers from your nightstand.
I dried and saved some of the petals. Some went into little heart containers with your ashes for the girls. Jewelry for your mom and sister. And some went into the necklace I wear.
Your parents are making you a stone to be placed with some of your ashes. They put sunflowers on it.
Your ashes. Your beard hairs. Sunflower petals.
Tiny pieces of you right by my heart.
Sunflowers are forever a part of our love story.
Love you and miss you,
Bangs
