Mother to potted plants and a baby flown away . . .

I am a mother to potted plants and a baby flown away.

Children grown in pots, filled lovingly with soil and whisked off to the next home every few years. I want them to send their roots down, shoot out for miles and soak up the California soil, but I am afraid. Fearful to let down my guard, loose control because the earth is years and years, generations of life and death all mixed together. My pots are handpicked, filled exactly with what I “think” is best and they are a heavy but transient load to hoist and take to the next stop on our journey leading where? Do you know this fear, this uneasy unrest, the constant question . . . what do I have to give, where should they grow, when should I trim, how under heaven do I feed them what they need?

And the baby flown away, he reminds me the darkness in this world, he whispers that all will be well in the someday of eternity. I loose track of his blond curls, his sweet face and I forget he is a man running now, more real, more alive, more himself than we. I know that he loves me because he told me in a dream and I wonder why. Me a failure of a mother and carrying these children the only thing I’ve ever done that really matters.

Do you know this pain of feeling failure, of babies flown or never given? Is this day beauty or a scar? Can it be anything other than both? Questions, questions and they’re all I know anymore. Resting in their equilibrium the only thing to do. Soaking up the searing pain and scandalous beauty intertwining because they feed each other. Symbiotic and the death feeds the soil, the blooms making it worth all the sacrifice. Only today’s bloom can be held but it carries in it the seed of tomorrow’s sweet smell. Falling to the ground to rise again.

So we dig our hands down in the soil, no matter where home lies, no matter our space on the land. Blessed by the sun and rain and the Maker of this grand globe. Tiny specs pressed down and we wait for them to spring up and surprise with the miracle once again, bellies filled and tongues thrilled.

Questions swirl and my heart beats fast and frail, but this garden is so good. So good and the one to come is better. I thank him for these seedlings given undeserved, blessed children and the one He holds tight. Beg for wisdom to be a good gardener of little hearts and thank Him for the rain and sun that I could never shower on them.

No matter your journey or who you hold in your arms, I pray you can rest in His love this Mother’s Day.