I never understood why my mom loved gardening. She lined the brick path from our gravel driveway to the front door with lamb's wool, pruned the rose bushes, and planted a Japanese Myrtle to the right of the two-story house. She will not allow anyone to throw away a dead plant to this day. (Not even a god-forsaken poinsettia wrapped in red and silver cellophane.) Mama brings the thing home to her "plant hospital." Sure enough, new life sprouts like a miracle. She's a gifted nurturer.
When the world shut down, and my belly began to swell with our third baby, I understood why digging in the dirt felt so life-giving to my mom. As I take a damp paper towel to wipe the dust from the leaves of my fiddles and rubber plants, all my strength morphs into tenderness. My shoulders slide down from my earlobes, and rage releases the grip it keeps on my gut. To nurture and tend to a living thing grounds me in what's gentle.
We've added to my plant babies since 2020 and, to my husband's dismay, a wily pothos hanging from the arbor. It fell, and the plastic cracked. I've been meaning to repot it for weeks. After work yesterday, we finally made a trip to the nursery. I laid the plant on our 1990s hot tub cover and began to pull apart the plastic and metal. Gently lifting vines and slowly maneuvering the old pot, I remembered my mom and thought it's not as fragile as you think.
As I handled the pothos, I thought of my newborn babies, small and spindly. If I close my eyes, I can still feel them lying on my ribcage after birth, rooting and ready to suckle at my breast. Then, I'd watch the nurse carry them like a football to be weighed, measured, flipped, and inspected. "They're not as fragile as you think," I remember one of them saying to me. It's only just made sense with my daughter's arrival. I've seen it now. I know. So I handle her and nurture her and love her so.
I used to withhold the truth. I believed that the worst thing in the world I could be was a burden. My chest ached from the stress of holding it all in, and my stomach stayed in knots resisting the urge to tell people the truth. They're too fragile to hear it, I'd think. I should protect them, do things without them, and keep all the weight off.
But it turns out - and you know where we're going now - they're not as fragile as you think. We're so accustomed to pussy footing around that we don't rightly handle what's true. We push down what should be said aloud and miss the chance to satisfy our longing for connection with candor.
Listen, I know there are people in this world who act like they were raised in a barn. Patience is not their virtue; kindness is not their strength. Unfortunately, these folks sometimes sit at our dinner table. (Sometimes, these folks are me and you.) I've always loved this proverb:
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are. Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools, or they will become wise in their own estimation. Proverbs 26:4-5 NLT
I take this to mean that there are times when there is no point in trying to tell the truth. And there are opportunities to speak honestly. Discern wisely and be merciful.
But don't opt out; tell the truth. The truth sets us free. It draws us close.
It's important to say that many of us are a hairline away from our breaking point. There is nothing to grasp but a thread of grace. That is both tender and true. Will you take the time right now to trust that you are not a burden? To believe the truth that your need to be helped is not a thing to be despised? Instead of folding inward, open yourself to receive. Tell the truth to the ones who love you most. Nayyirah Waheed said, “I don't pay attention to the world ending. It has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.”
You're not as fragile as you think.
I’m rooting for you,
Ashley
I needed to hear this. Good things come in the morning, we’re stronger than we think we are.
Reading this on March 11, 2024, while sitting in my car waiting for someone to come and change my flat tire, and it’s still if not more significant to me today! And I literally just read this Proverbs verse. Thanks for this timely reminder friend!