The gift of flowers
I had written off the yard for this year. Every time I walked up the front steps I could see the towering weeds drowning out the flowers. Whenever I thought about it, I wanted to cry because I love flowers. It is not that I couldn’t find time to weed. It is that once I start weeding, I’ve opened the door to gardening thoughts. Once I begin weeding, I want to plant and tend and construct in the yard. Small scraps of time spent weeding would only cause me to grieve for all the things I do not have time to do. So I schooled myself to ignore the weeds. Mostly. Except sometimes when I would see them and feel bad that my house looks so unkempt, and I would worry what the neighbors must think about looking at the mess. The fact that I have wonderful neighbors who really don’t mind does not stop me from minding on their behalf.
Yesterday I emerged from hours of accounting to discover that my mother, who is visiting, had wandered outside and began weeding. She had cleared a large swath of the front flower bed. There were my perennials, visible again. She cut a huge swath through all the weeds, clearing two long beds and three tree circles. She single-handedly filled up our huge garbage bin.
This by itself was a gift beyond measure.
But then she bought flowers.
She bought flowers to plant in the clear spaces she created. For the first time in months my yard has beauty.
Just thinking of it makes me want to cry.
I have flowers.