Growing Grass, Growing Children

 

New grass is growing in my backyard.

This homestead, our home, was quite literally carved out of a mountain just 18 months ago. We’re still working to tame the wilderness. We battle the creepers and crawlers and tiny winged things that seem to insist their home was here first. We pull up weed after tangly weed. We find poison ivy in the woods and in the crooks of our arms and behind our knees.

When all is raked and combed and tilled, we sow the seeds, and then we wait. We watch the tiny shoots of green reach for the sky, and urge the rolling thunderheads to stop their tireless grumbling and just rain already.

Round one, the July sun was too hot and our little green shoots shriveled up to a lovely sunbaked brown.

Try again.

It’s working this time. The green, fighting the brown, fighting the weeds, fighting the sun. But you can’t turn your back. In this heat, in this earth, growth must be tended, coaxed, loved, urged.

********

Henry’s been mad at me the past few weeks. The baby is here to stay. And she’s nursing, always nursing, keeping Mommy from helping with his pajamas or pouring his juice.

“Can you get Jordan to help you?”

“Why don’t you take that to Lucy and let her fix it?”

The sun of this trial is hot on his little shoulders, and he’s weary, I can tell. I have no doubt he will survive, but I must not forget to tend, to coax, to urge, to love.

Tonight, I took Henry for a walk. We looked for grasshoppers and found many. Looked for turtles and found none. We laughed and counted the leaves on clover until we found the magic four. We shared mosquito bites, we watched ants crawl over our toes. We rekindled, and fell in love with each other all over again. We needed it–to touch noses and hearts, to hold hands and remember that we are in this together, he and I.

And like new grass growing, surviving the trial of rainless summer days and scorching heat, we will weather this season just fine.

QUESTION: Do any of your children need extra reassurances of your love?

CHALLENGE: Take time today to make sure each of your children know that you will always love them.

About Jenny Proctor

Jenny Proctor was born in the mountains of Western North Carolina, a place she still resides and considers the loveliest on earth. She hikes to spend time with her husband and six children, runs because her love for food requires it, and writes because it keeps her calm in an otherwise crazy world. Jenny's first novel, The House at Rose Creek, was released in 2013.