Boy to the World: Happiness Must Be Grown in One's Own Garden

“A man reaps what he sows.” ~Galatians 6:7 NIV

In the time I have lived in the house that I do, there’s often been someone else around to take care of the yard and garden, but currently, most of this responsibility lies with me. This has always been one of the chores I’ve eschewed, not only because someone else did it, but because I figured “I’m too busy with what’s going on inside the house,” e.g., my three children and my job, which I do at home.

However, this year, I realized that I could no longer put off the inevitable Spring cleanup when a friend pointed out that raking up “all those leaves” (that I had ignored not only in the warmer months but also as far back as the previous Autumn) might be a good service project for our church youth group. Initially my excitement about getting that project done overshadowed my embarrassment that she’d noticed what a mess my yard was.

But then I realized that it wouldn’t be fair to expect someone else to do something I’m perfectly capable of doing. I figured the youth group should spend their time helping someone who really needed it: my older two children have reached the age where they do not need constant supervision outside, and they can actually assist in managing their younger brother. This means we can all be outside together and I can do something other than herd them away from the front yard (which is only a small strip of grass between our home and a busy street) or push them in the swings. Besides, it would be a good opportunity to teach them about yardwork.

So I committed to tackling the project. The following Monday I got out the rake.

Over the course of the next month – a little at a time – I managed to clean up most of the leaves (though I decided to let the ones that are now mostly hidden behind the day lilies rest in peace), plant some seeds, and pull out weeds.

The boys and I went to a garden store to pick out some flowers and when the guy ringing us up did a double take at the eclectic mix we’d chosen (anything blue for my oldest, anything red for my middle, and anything goes for the youngest), and my insistence that we needed not one, but three, “boy-colored” watering cans, I told him, “I’m not just growing flowers, I’m growing children.”

The boys have done a little weeding and watering, which has mostly consisted of flooding the flower beds, making a mud puddle at the bottom of the slide that’s part of our swing set, soaking each other, or whacking dandelions with baseball bats. I’ve been digging dandelions out of the front yard (to keep up with the proverbial “Joneses”), but I am not militant about this – especially in the back yard – since I appreciate receiving the little yellow bouquets thrust at me with small fists. I also like making dandelion seed wishes just as much as the boys do, something that makes many a lawn aficionado cringe.

One day my neighbor across the street came over and relieved me of my lawn-mowing duties. He also helped me figure out what was a weed and what was not, validating my opinion that if I like it, it can stay (including the violets that punctuate the lawn alongside the remaining dandelions). This means that my gardens are a random mix of flowers, ivy and other ground cover, some sort of bush with prickly tentacles, something else that looks like it’s part of the onion family, as well as some bare spots, where the seeds we planted were likely washed away by overzealous watering. (I’ll probably put perennial bulbs there when I figure out when is the right time to plant them). I rearranged the lawn statues, sundial, and birdbath (that my mom left behind when she moved across the country) to suit my own taste.

Recently, as I was unrolling the hose, I surveyed my little quarter acre plot of the American dream, and was reminded of a sentiment that graces one of my sets of greetings cards: “Happiness must be grown in one’s own garden.” I realized that my garden is a visual representation of my life: it is lush and colorful and welcoming to friends and family; at the same time, there are thorny parts, non-conforming parts, and empty parts, as well as some bugs. It’s not perfect by any means, but there’s a tremendous amount of beauty and joy, even in unlikely places. It’s a work in progress and I’m responsible for it.

And then I stuck my thumb over the end of the hose to spray water gently into the birdbath, and made my own rainbow.