I was once very deeply in denial about my son’s diagnosis. Something past, and future me would find hard to believe, but I in that moment, was firmly planted in a place that didn’t allow my children to deviate from my plan. The amusing part is that the plan was vague, a mere suggestion of what I believed was a happy and fulfilled life: an easy path with few bumps in the road. I was prepared to raise all of my children the same way. Not in a rigid or unforgiving way, but similar modes and support. He wasn’t talking as much, he was stimming, and he never regressed, yet he eloped as soon as he could walk, he climbed to what he wanted, and took zero pointers on how to be what I thought he should be in that blip in time. Those terrible twos, the tough threes, were when I had to breathe through things like bedtime, trips to the store. They didn’t feel as natural, I wasn’t winning the parenting game, and I felt defeated, but never enough to admit that my smart, funny boy was truly in a different neuro space than I had pictured in passing moments of daydream.
Much like the me that started this backyard garden. The me that watched vlogs on YouTube and nodded to myself with assurance. The woman who planted the seeds and waited, only expecting the flowers and fruits to jump from the soil and run to meet me where I stood in exactly the time they should take. Spend the time, effort, and money, and then reap what you sow. It’s easy, and a process as old as time. What could go wrong as long as I played my part?
Those flowers did grow, and I did get to pick veggies and fill my basket. Never at the time I would want. Never without pests, rain too frequent or not enough, and never without surprises of cats that enjoyed a lettuce patch to lounge on, or the cucumbers that appeared perfect on the outside, that hid a caterpillar munching its way through. Never in my time, but on a watch that God wears in his coat pocket and doesn’t share its face with just anyone. A timing all his own.
When I stopped expecting things to bend to my will and be just how I imagined them to be. Just like the moment I knew to take my sweet boy to therapy, to get a diagnosis. In the moment that I cried and accepted that I wasn’t in control of his life, I was simply there to love him wildly and give him every ounce of support I knew how. In the same way, those tomatoes that never seemed to ripen for weeks of waiting, only to be bright red perfection with no notice one July morning. My boy would learn to use his words. He would hold my hand and walk with me through the garden or anywhere and feel the safety of my arms and the reassurance that I required nothing from him but his being. When I let go of the control that was never mine, the bounty of a harvest that was never just mine.
The garden, like my three perfect children, is not mine in the sense that I had any control. These wild things are answering to themselves and the perfection of nature. Guided, they will bloom and grow and flower and fruit, but never on a schedule my human hands can pencil down or predict. They will all leave me in awe and completely wordless and breathless in their perfection and beauty.