Kickin' & Screamin'

My Grandparents had the prettiest flower gardens ever.  Perfect flowers in perfect flower beds, lined with large and beautiful rocks. No weeds, perfectly fertilized, with bold, beautiful colors.  My Grandmother would order bulbs from the best flower catalogs, and make special trips all the way to Atlanta (before we had the big-store garden departments here in town) just to find the perfect perennials.  Then the love of her life, my sweet Paw Paw, would haul those large, beautiful rocks and railroad crossties all  over the yard to line each flower bed to her liking.  They took great pride in how cars would actually slow down as they crossed the bridge before their home, just to take in the sights.  They would end a day of hard work walking hand in hand over their yards, admiring their work.

Though all the flowers were perfectly placed in it’s required shade or sun, each color complimenting the other, there was one thing my Grandmother loved more than any flower she had planted.  Her most favorite find among all her treasures was the “volunteer.”

She was always so excited to see a little flower popping up in a random spot, growing all on it’s own, simply volunteering to show up.

As a little girl, she explained to me how these volunteer flowers would grow from seeds dropped by flowers in previous years.  We giggled as she told me that the seeds are sometimes dropped from birds, often from their poop, into a new location.  We watched as squirrels ran around, wondering if they had a flower seed stuck in their fur, which would drop off in a new spot to sprout a tiny little volunteer.

Knowing that my Grandparents spent hundreds of dollars each spring on their gardens, it always amazed me at how excited she would get over the volunteers.  She would talk about their determination, about how they grew with absolutely no effort on her part, no special soil, no fertilizer.  Just determination to grow.  Sometimes she would leave them right where they chose to appear, and sometimes she’d relocate them to a safer spot to escape the chance of being trampled by the lawn mower.  She loved and protected them so much more than she did the prize-winning Iris bulbs or brilliantly colored day lilies that were carefully planted in the rock lined beds.  She called them her “sweet little volunteers” and worked hard to make sure they thrived.

I strive to be a volunteer.  That flower that just shows up. The bloom that beats the odds.  I don’t know that I always am….but I want to be.  I dream to be. Daily, I strive to be.

Over the past few years, I most definitely have felt like a flower that had been plowed over with that lawn mower.  A flower that didn’t get to live it’s full potential, who withered up too soon.  Maybe a lack of sunshine, a lack of water, lack of the extra attention needed to thrive….or, in human terms–perhaps a lack of faith, too much heartbreak, or a sense of smothering after grief.  There have been times that I felt like that seed that completely gets torn apart, with absolutely no chance of survival.  There have been times that I felt like a seed that had been carried so far away from home, comfort and peace….that I’d never find my way back again.

This evening, as I returned home from a long walk, I noticed a tiny white bloom peeking up around a tree in my front yard.  Nothing I’d planted, nothing I recognized.  Just a tiny little volunteer.  This little flower is living through no effort at all on my part.  No extra attention.  No water other than the random rainfall.  No special soil, no special fertilizer.  Just determination.  A seed that has travelled from a previous destination, perhaps planted in a neighbor’s garden this past spring, or last year, or even several years ago.  Perhaps the seed had an easy path to travel, simply blowing through the wind from a nearby garden.  This could compare to those we know who we THINK have an easy life.  Those who always seem to be at peace.  But what are these people possibly going through that we will never know about?  How peaceful are they, truly?  Perhaps the seed ended up in my yard through the hardest of circumstances….yep,  poop.  I mean, don’t we all sometimes think that things just can’t get any crappier in our life?? I think we’ve all felt like that seed that’s literally covered in crap.  Walked on, dumped on, covered in all sorts of emotions that can be summed up as CRAP.  Yet, we can all emerge from that crap and truly become something beautiful.  A volunteer.

I strive to be a volunteer.  I look at the path I’ve travelled as a journey that’s led me to become planted where I am now.  Though my location hasn’t actually changed, my heart has.  Though my address hasn’t actually changed, my outlook has.  My vision has.  My direction has.

I have travelled through the storms and winds, to land in a spot of hope.  A spot of love.  A spot of new life.  I’m that volunteer flower, and I want to continue to grow and bloom and make people say, “WHERE the heck did she come from?”

I challenge you to be a volunteer.  I challenge all of us…..to land where life takes us, and grow.  Let’s not feel like we have to be in a certain group–in that perfect flower bed.  Let’s not feel like we must have the perfect things to help us grow…but live on our own determination and our simple need to exist.  Let’s grow.  Let’s thrive.

Let’s be volunteers.

Show up.  Surprise the others.

Bloom proudly.

GROW.

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To my Grandparents, who no doubt have the prettiest flower gardens in heaven….I hope I’m somehow making you proud…