Weeding My Garden

Gardening is on my brain. Vegetables, flowers and weeds. Weeds that creep into my soil and try to send their roots deep inside to hold on. Those weeds also find their way into my thoughts. When I lay in bed at night before falling asleep and realize that my little boy should be sleeping in his bassinet at my arm's reach. When I think about how quiet our house will be this fall when our second oldest heads off to school with her sister and I am left with our youngest when we had planned on her being home with her little brother and I instead. When I realized we no longer needed to have the diaper bag in our minivan. These thoughts, if not pulled, root themselves deep and threaten to crowd out the beauty within. The more attention these thoughts get from me, the larger they grow and the harder it is to think about anything else. Every day I have to make a conscious effort to look up and look ahead. I have to choose to live for what is instead of what might have been. Just like spending hours in my yard painstakingly pulling weeds from the ground, rooting into the soil searching for its roots, I have to also perform the excruciating task of weeding my spirit. Every day. That choice is hard. It is so much easier to let the pain take over, to do nothing. I don't make this choice because that is what my sons would want me to do, honestly I believe they want me to be happy. Not just for me to act happy but to really be happy. The choice is only for me. If my sons have taught me anything they have taught me that one never truly knows what the future holds and no amount of planning, prayer or even hope will change that future. Each moment is precious and once it is past, can never recur. It is up to me to make those moments memorable instead of forgettable.