A Garden of Life

I was helping grandma do some gardening one warm and sunny day and I made the remark about how beautiful all the things she planted seemed to bloom with life. She just smiled at me as she always does when she hears a compliment. She was special in that way. She never said a word when complimented, just a smile was her only response.

“Boy, life itself is like a garden. You need to remove the weeds, you need to water and feed the plants as they deserve. You also need to know the soil in which you are planting the seeds you wish to grow so that you may give it the nutrients it needs to feed your plants. Then you must plant those seeds where they may receive the sunlight that brings life to those seeds. Lastly, there must be a love of what you are doing for without love a garden will not receive the attention it needs. With this, your garden will prosper and the flowers will smile upon you as they bloom.

If people would remove the weeds out of their lives, treat themselves as they deserve, they will see life as being beautiful also. However, just like a garden, people have to know the difference between what are weeds and what are the plants that you want in your garden of life. They need to know and understand the environment in which their lives were planted so that they may provide the nutrients necessary for that environment to help them grow. Never the less, they must also feel the sunlight that gave them life in the first place and relish in the warmth of it.

Just as you and I cannot force the plants to grow as we want them to we can give them the opportunity to grow into the plants they were meant to be. The same is true with people, I cannot force myself into being the person I want to be but I can take advantage of the opportunities that will guide me to being the person I was meant to be.”

Then she kinda looked at me with a shy smile as she said, “Marrying your grandfather was one of those opportunities I took advantage of too. Being the mother of my children was another opportunity I took advantage of. For each of these opportunities influenced my life in a manner that I can say that I am the person I was meant to be and can say that it has been a life I have relished and could ask for nothing more of life.

Now, boy, don’t get my words wrong by thinking I did not give up opportunities when taking advantage of these. I did, just like everyone else does when he chooses the opportunities they do. There are many a thing that I would have enjoyed doing that I could not because of the opportunities I chose to take. However, I also know that I could not have taken advantage of these opportunities if I had chose others. For opportunities only come once in a lifetime. Some opportunities may appear to be the same but they are not. The end results always differ with each opportunity of life.

As your grandfather would say, we need to honor those opportunities we choose to take advantage of. Love of self and love of others will be our guide to knowing how much we honor the opportunities we have chosen. For it is from the love we have that we will know the sacrifice needed to fulfill these opportunities. It is from our love that we know just how much we need to give up so that our little garden will prosper.”

With that said, she started muttering some unspeakable words as she attacked the weeds she was pulling up and I just had to chuckle in silence as I pretended not to hear them.