A Little Volunteer

One of my favorite things about a garden in spring is the surprise of "volunteers".  They rise up in the walkways and spill out of compost bins. The offspring of last year's flowers lie waiting under the pine straw, leaf mold, and snow for the sunlight to warm them and draw them out and up into life. I delight in carefully extracting every threadlike sinew of the delicate roots systems, praying that a little soil will remain attached in the process, and that the new hole for those roots will be moist and deep enough to gently encourage them to reach and spread. Because volunteers, in case you didn't know, become the hardiest, most glorious plants in the garden. In their seemingly accidental existence, volunteers, without fail, will bear the sweetest, most beautiful fruit.

You're our little volunteer, Miss Melanie. Like the zinnias and cosmos I find choking in the mulch, you're provided just a little sunny, fertile spot in the garden box and you flourish. Storms tear at tender tendrils and knock you to the ground. A trip to the ER morphs into an eleven-day stay, and you're left with a four-inch scar in an abdomen only a few inches longer; a scar to add to the many others seen and unseen.  Yet you reach and grow. Your stems remain strong and intact. You find yourself again, dealing with misunderstanding and anxiety. You encounter fears your mind has long forgotten, but your body remembers all too well. Still you glow like none other and respond, each morning, to the Light; presenting a new bud; a brilliant blossom unfurling; your surprise gift to a world that purposed to cover you and hold you, deep down in darkness.

We will never get over the miracle of you, Melanie Anne. You and your brother were in our hearts on long walks through the waving sideoats and sprawling live oaks on late summer evenings--evenings when hope seemed as far away as Venus hanging on the horizon, blurred by a wash of tears. And more of that miracle just keeps on emerging as we rise with you, a family of adopted children slowly growing into the heart of our Father.

This has been more than hard. It's been a bit like fumbling around in the dark; a whole lot like lying dead under the leaf mold, pine straw and snow. But the sun is radiant. The rain and soil nourish. The tinglings of life are warming us through. And I feel certain that, in just a little while, we will stand together, rooted deeply, fully family and fully His.

Happy birthday, my love. You will never cease to amaze us! You and your brother are beyond "anything we could have asked for or imagined", and we are so thankful.