Getting Rid of the Weeds

Despite the sunshine this morning, I felt depressed. I said to my husband, “I don’t feel like writing. I feel like weeding my flower garden. Even though I’m sore from yesterday’s weeding, I want to get out in the fresh air.”

This is the first year since fracturing my knee that I’ve been able to kneel on the ground and weed.

Thanks to the person who tidied my garden last year and showed me which of my green plants were weeds and which were flowers, I have some knowledge of what to pull out and what to leave in. Last year I was afraid to pull anything out.

The leaves of one plant looked a lot like a lupine, but after noticing it was invading the whole garden, I began to get rid of it. For about thirty minutes, I dug and pulled and pulled and dug in the area where my lupines are growing. Looking at clusters of lupines standing free of weeds gave me a feeling of satisfaction. I walked over to the white lilac bushes and clipped off enough for a bouquet.

I placed them in a blue vase that belonged to my mother-in-law. I thought, while doing it, that I could cut more of them and take them to church tomorrow. It’s Mother’s Day. Then, realizing what my feeling of depression was about, I began to cry.

I was missing my own mother, my mother-in-law, other women who mentored me in life and especially the friend who shared mothering experiences with me while we were raising our children. Two of these people died within the last year.

Crying helped me release weeds of self-pity and anger which had invaded my heart. I still feel sad, yet comforted because, like freed-up lupines, good memories can now blossom. And my writing-block, along with those weeds, is gone.