We've spent the last week packing, moving and rearranging things to send an eclectic assortment of household furnishings and such with my daughter to her new home. Part of this process is sad. Some of it (okay a lot of it) has worn us out both physically and mentally. Most of this "purge" of things going to start a new life is very exciting. I like the idea of my husbands and my first table going to our daughters home. I had my first meals as a newlywed there. I love that this furniture will be experiencing new life again. I have enjoyed spending time with numerous grandparents sorting through family treasures (and some new finds as well) to get our daughter and her love started in their journey together. All of this has had me contemplating the purpose of life; not just as a Christian but as a human. I have spend so much of my life watching this process unfold. Sometimes I was so busy, I failed to realize that I was in the middle of this great journey myself. As a child I remember the first time I was vividly aware of new life was when my brother was born. The following summer my friend and I spent weeks sitting in the playhouse my father had made. We enjoyed hours sewing scraps of "foraged" fabric together for a quilt. This quilt was the product of our hands and a lot of love; it was also probably the funniest looking thing ever; with it's odd colors, multi sized stitching, tacky seventies prints & pink velvet edges. The hand sewn childlike quilt was a gift for my soon to be new baby brother or sister. I soon realized at eight years old how fragile life was. I didn't know how someone I never met or was even "visible" could die. I remember my friend and I taking our gift all boxed up to my mother. I guess, in my child like mind I figured that maybe if she had the quilt the baby would come back to use it. Of course that never happened. I spent my childhood summers gardening; planting seeds, weeding things out, working hard and watching the plants produce fruit. I knew my father told me if you don't pick the "fruit" the plants will stop producing it. My girlfriend and I were also master "transplanters". We would find anything in the woods or at the side of the road that we thought was an attractive plant and bring it back home to be planted in our playhouse garden. I grew up on a small farm and marveled at waking up to a new colt in the field or a fluffy chick in the hen house. We always had puppies, kittens and the like. Some of them were "transplants or repurposed" pets that got left at our place. What joy they brought. We watched them grow, loved them and then like all things they went on their earthly way. This morning I pulled out a cantaloupe from the veggie drawer in our fridge. We have had a nice amount of these from our garden this year. With summer coming to an end, the plants have begun to slow; much as we all do. So, I was saving this cantaloupe for the weekend. Note to self... next time use your resources when they are there. I am now hoping to find another one in the garden when I go out in a bit. This silly piece of fruit caused me ponder that we too are like the garden vines. We are planted or we plant. We grow and we watch growth. Most of us hope to reproduce and wish for our seeds to carry on that tradition when they mature. A vine in the garden is there for the soul purpose of reproducing its self. If we harvest and the sun and weather permits some will produce for years. Others have but a single season and only one harvest. Some of us get "transplanted or repurposed"; a blessing for sure. Sending my daughter out with things that I used and enjoyed and some of them her grandparents did; gives these lifeless objects "new life". We as humans always seem to be chasing our own life so much. I personally always feel as though by the time I catch one "era" the next is already upon me. It is like the puppy in the grass that can't catch his tail. Plants and animals seem to have a much more direct path. "Be planted", grow, reproduce, and die. Humans have so much "stuffed in between" these four phases. I am at one of those "stuffed in between" cross roads. I am staring at my wasted cantaloupe. yes, my mind sometimes works in weird ways. I realize that as my children grow and move on; this is a chance to grow some more, even though I thought I was done "growing". This is a season for my husband and I to "produce" things in a new and different way. There will be work ahead of us; like the gardens of our past. I am hoping that this time maybe things will slow down just a bit and allow us to actually breathe in the essence of the past and the freshness of the future. Whether we are ready to be transplanted in the world it is happening. God has given us a gift that plant, animals (and some humans) don't always have. This gift is the ability to take all that we have been given and given to others and reshape it into a beautiful (and hopefully slower paced) second (or third etc) go around in life. I think this time I will always use the cantaloupe in its peak, enjoying its aroma, and flavor. Some gifts only appear once, maybe twice. Go out and enjoy life in what ever phase you are in. Some things like the kitchen table get repurposed most do not. Embrace what is before you, while things are still fresh. Don't be a "soggy" cantaloupe.
Copyright © 2011-2012 Micheline Edwards
All rights reserved to by Micheline Edwards
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