The Seedling

My past has been fraught with pain and sorrow, and lately my journey has been towards healing and wholeness, and I thought I had turned a corner, put the grieving behind me, and could get on with life, but I fear that is not how life works.  A soul is not a light switch that may be turned off or on at need or when convenient.  Yes, I have gained a sense of peace, have gotten over the initial mourning and grief, and attained some emotional stability, but the pain never, truly goes away when the wound is so deep.  It can scab over and even scar in, but the scar is still there, and occasionally it tingles or aches, just like physical scar tissue in the cold.  My in-laws came over this weekend, and my sense of grief was acute, not because of anything they did or did not do, and really it had nothing whatsoever to do with them at all, save to demonstrate what my family and heritage might have been.  But instead of being embittered by the past, I must continue to walk behind the plow, head bowed and determined to go on, no matter the turmoil of heart, soul, and mind, plowing a new furrow for my own little clan, that some day perhaps, my own grandchildren may one day 'rise up and call me blessed,' but oh the ache amid the seemingly thankless toil!

Then I ran across this little article dealing with just that issue!  Some have a grand heritage to pass on to the next generation, roots that go deep and massive boughs to shade and protect them from the blistering heat as they send out their own rootlets to delve deep into the homey soil, while others must plow a new furrow in soil that has never known the plow, amid rocks and bramble and thorn, the sun unblinking and hot overhead, dust assaulting the nose and eyes, plastered in place by sweat, but so too did the forebears of those with a great and branching heritage once toil, that their descendants might not have to do likewise.  So too must I look not to the end of the row, nor even to the end of the season, but a decade, a century ahead, to the yield and bounty that will be borne to my children's children, but only by one painful step at a time can it be achieved, faithfully toiling in the place, the time, and with the resources and weather given me.