As Mother's Day approaches, my mind drifts back to moments like these, moments where the chaos of daily life collides with unexpected beauty. I find myself standing in the empty nester stage now, where the echoes of childhood laughter have faded into memory. Yet, tucked away in the corners of my mind are snippets of the young kid stage, moments like the one with a persistent weed.
As I pulled into my driveway day after day, there to the left of my driveway,
stood an enormous weed stalk that irritated me every time I came home. I had
previously mowed the lawn but the weed stood in a place that was hard to reach
with the lawnmower. So there it stayed. Day after day, I reminded myself that it
had to be pulled but as I proceeded into the garage the thought quickly escaped my mind. I grew more and more annoyed as the days passed. For somehow it was a reflection of my life's imperfections. It stood for all the tasks that I never had time to do, the unfinished laundry, cleaning, e-mails, etc. The weed was just a reminder of what my life had become. Until one day my 6-year-old son excitedly ran into the kitchen, with the dirt-filled weed clenched in his little hand. He had a smile from ear to ear and proudly handed the weed to me. He looked at me with his big blue eyes and said, “Here Mom, I picked this for you”. For a split second, I felt relief that the sight of that horrific weed no longer burdened me. He had done the task that I kept forgetting to do. But that relief quickly changed to shame. I realized that this pesky weed had a different meaning to him. It had the most delicate purple flowers on it and was actually quite pretty. And my son was sure that this gift would make his Mom happy. So of course I accepted his gift and proudly displayed it on the dining room table for all to see.
As I pass by the weed that when in my yard seemed so annoying, but now is
a beautiful decoration on my table, I realize that there is beauty in everything and
we sometimes miss what is important in life by looking at the “weeds” instead of
the beautiful flowers that surround us every day.
Written by: Kim Schmidt, AMFT
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