forgiveness lesson

It's high time I let Laura out of the public stocks o' shame I put her in when she poisoned the garden. You remember.

We decided to let the soil Rest In Peace, back in the immediate aftermath of the accident. We pulled out and tossed the poisoned plants and stirred lots of compost into the soil, since compost breaks down the poison, we were told. We bought some hay and covered the beds. We all but played "Taps" and kept a flag at half-mast. The garden looked pathetic all empty and covered, and somehow that felt right.

That lasted a few days, and the empty beds just looked so grim out there. We decided to keep the somber look for most of the beds, but planted colorful flowers in the beds closest to the house. We waited to see if these non-edible plants would tolerate the poisoned soil. They did.

And then, well, you know what's in our compost? Tomato seeds, cucumber seeds, zucchini seeds, cantaloupe seeds. For awhile we just pulled out the little volunteers that kept sprouting through the hay, in an attempt to put them and us out of our misery. We assumed we couldn't eat them even if they did manage to squeeze out a poisoned fruit or two.

But life wants life, you know. It loves itself and just can't help it. The plants just kept coming.

I called a master gardener and explained our situation. She, it turns out, once had sprayed much of her own garden with the same poison the week before it was featured on her town's garden tour. Sure, she hadn't poisoned edible plants, but she empathized, deeply. She said not to feel too badly about it; that these things happen to everyone. My scrawny heart shrank a bit not to have her snort with me over Laura's mistake. I felt very small, very scrawny about that.

She also said the volunteer plants are perfectly safe to eat. The poison was gone after we had pulled the original plants and had had a good rain.

We aren't even entirely sure about some of the plants that are coming, but they're coming. Will this one be a cantaloupe or a cuke? Here is a shot of a bit of the impending bounty, randomly spaced in the hay, and groping its way toward more and more life.

And here is the larger spiritual message I am taking away from all this: