WISCONSIN, Aug 19 : A grieving widower has fulfilled a promise he made to his dying wife by planting sunflowers along a 7km stretch of a Wisconsin highway.
Don Jaquish planted the four-and-a-half-mile long, 60ft wide sunflower field along Wisconsin State Road 85 in tribute to his wife Babbette, who died in November last year after a nine year battle with cancer. Jaquish, from city of Eau Claire in the west of the state, told ABC News: "She's always loved flowers, but sunflowers were her favourite.
"They fit her personality. She'd walk into a room and her smile would light up a whole room."
The sunflower patch stretches over five farms which neighbours agreed to give Jaquish access to in exchange for whatever rent he deemed fair because "they all loved her". "There wasn't anyone that ever met her that didn't love her", he said.
Now seeds harvested from the sunflowers will be sold with the proceeds going to help other cancer patients as part of a charity called Babbette's Seeds of Hope".
Babbette had asked Jaquish to plant the flowers four years before her death.  She had written letter to Jaquish before she died, which he only discovered four months after her death. She wrote: "You move on and live each day.
"Feel me in the morning air, and when you wake up and make your coffee.
"I will be there always."
And Jaquish says he feels her presence in those sunflowers.
    ?THE INDEPENDENT