Perhaps my garden image helps with this topic. In my new book, Bless You Bouquets, I’m using the life cycle image, so it’s been on my mind. This past weekend I’ve answered a baby shower announcement (new life), seen pictures from Cedar Rapids of a wedding of a youngster we watched grow up and is now a beautiful bride), studied in a class for church leaders about mentoring and leadership, attended and served a luncheon at the funeral service of a dear friend. Here’s the life story in one weekend.
Here’s what I’ve written in my manuscript. I hope it blesses your day.
AsI gaze at my rose garden, I think of each developmental phase of the roses I see there as if they are the stages of one’s life: the tiny buds represent new life; I pray for the ladies I know to be carrying babies, including my sweet daughter-in-love, doing the hard work of nurturing, protecting, and providing. Those tight, closed strong buds, holding their incipient encapsulated treasures, get their sustenance from the strong arching undergrowth, their heritage, from which they extend. Both are vulnerable, yet daring to reach forth, grounded, protected, strong. Both are on a mission to produce beauty, and will brave the rain and winds of adversity to achieve their purpose.
Then I see the newly opening buds, just showing their color, the fragility of their outer petals, stretching and growing toward the sun. Immediately, I picture my beautiful granddaughter, Kaley, just starting to walk and talk, experimenting with new tastes of food, and moment by moment exploring her world with unbridled enthusiasm and joy.
Don’t you just love babies’ exuberance and sense of wonder as they survey their world and brighten everything around them with their innocent beauty? I pray you are blessed with a baby in your life to watch, admire, and love.
The new growth, just after I fertilize the plants and have them all pruned and pretty, often bursts forth with random shoots and clusters of buds, none of which will end up as gorgeous, full-blown blooms. They’re random, offshoots, I call them, and, unless their unbridled enthusiasm is guided, they will return the carefully bred hybrids to their original wild rose ancestry.
In my life-metaphor, these are the teenagers, experimenting, doing their own thing, running ramshackle through the staid and straight mores and traditions, charting their exuberant paths, charting new territory, experimenting with experiences the thoughtful, stay-the-course attitudes adults find more comfortable and reasonable. While there is much to admire in adolescent points of view, it’s a passing phase to be observed, admired, and ultimately shunned except for the dreamers among us who refuse to “get with the program” and grow up. I’ve taught so many of them, and learned so much from them in return. But it’s a phase, and indeed, the Peter Pan in all of us must one day grow up and shoulder the onerous responsibilities of adulthood.
Ultimately, gorgeous mature blooms, fully open, exuding fragrance and brilliance, welcome visits from the butterflies and bees, and boldly display their propensities for showing off—ah yes, these are the movers and shakers of the world, those who run our businesses, head up the charity organizations, serve in our armed forces, conduct our orchestras, preach from our pulpits, parent our children, and inspire us.
In the prime of life, these remind me of the upwardly mobile among us, those who find purpose in their careers, avocations, or hobbies, spend innumerable hours in pursuing excellence, and want to make a difference in the world. They passionately announce their presence, their availability to challenges, and their opportunities to influence the world.
Likewise, yesterday’s blooms display intensifying color, still trying to impress. They present an image of our seniors who have lived much and have much to give. These are the petals I choose to dry for sachets, or to distill rosewater for recipes. They’ve absorbed all the sunlight they can; they are ready to serve other purposes.
These blooms are actually the most prolific ones on my bushes. This is the Best Yet Set, the retirees. I’m glad, because these correspond to those who have lived well, provide beauty and elegance, and have a place in my mind’s garden as my contemporaries who continue to bless others by their grace, their inner beauty, and their strong tenacious endurance. They have stories to tell and advice to give.
I’m proud to be among them; I’ve earned every last grey hair and laugh line on my face. I’ve walked the walk and talked the talk, and I now enthusiastically embrace the attitude of Jenny Joseph, who at twenty-nine years of age in 1932 wrote a poem called “Warning.” Her very famous line “When I am an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple,” says that age allows one the freedom of expression frowned upon in younger days. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The Red Hat society ladies who boldly clash in their reds and purples, and make no bones about enjoying life free from most inhibitions which formerly restrained them. I’m not totally free from my conservative upbringing, in fact I have not dared to break many of those established bonds, but I love the idea that some find the freedom to finally live life with enthusiasm and panache.
My daughter sneers which I stop to talk to complete strangers, complimenting them on their darling children, telling them I love their enthusiasm for their job efforts, or asking, “Where did you find that beautiful umbrella?”
She acts as if she wants to disown me. (Of course, I never remind her of the embarrassment of explaining away childish behaviors or her painfully shy nature long ago) Second childhood for me is a privilege!
And yes, there are the browned roses, those whose time has come to leave. Some just fade away and drop out of sight. Their pallid petals descend downward, wafting in the breeze, scattering evidence of their lost productivity and their “once I was a beauty” stories like pages of history infrequently recalled. The ones I fail to “dead-head” form rose hips, great sources of vitamin C to refresh those who delve into their treasures and most assuredly the seeds from which other things can spring.
Translation: life ends, and one hopes to have left a legacy. We will eventually meet on the other side of Time, joining a special garden and blooming where we were always meant to be.
Therefore, with the image of the rose garden life cycle, likewise, in my third attempt at retirement, I am now thinking reflectively about the people whom I’ve known, loved, admired, and cherished on my life-journey.
I’m thinking of my parents’ legacy to the four of us Whitakers. My gardens translate into a beautiful metaphor, garden elements which remind me of people who have intertwined to make me who I am.
Like Anne Frank, I can have my friendship memory garden right where I am, for to quote Mr. Frank,
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“There are no walls, no bolts, no locks that anyone can put on your mind.”
Diary of Anne Frank
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I may envision my memory garden of friends and flowers with the complete freedom and serendipity, and I invite you to join in creating this picture with me.
You’ve known those who have blessed you with their expertise, their personalities, and their appropriate words at just the right moments. Have you thanked them? Do you have relationships which need restoration? Is that part of the garden neglected? Another of my late-life slogans:
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Neglect causes regret, don’t forget.
But restoration and appreciation bring elation!
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In my first book, It’s a God Thing!, I call relationships and events Godincidences; I honestly believe there are no coincidences for believers in God’s sovereignty, and that every event, every conversation, every relationship is part of the huge tapestry which makes us who we are, dedicated to His special purposes, and destined to fulfill His plan for each other at the very time and place where we are.
We will leave a legacy. Our responsibility is to make the God-given choices, make use of every opportunity He places in our pathways, and live to bring Him glory and honor as our praise and thanksgiving for His presence in our lives. That will be the perfect legacy.
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