The Family Gardener

I love my Mother-in-law. No, this isn't the intro to a bad joke. I really and truly love her. I count her as one of my dearest friends. I've never been able to call her "Mom". Not because I don't respect her position as the matriarch of the family (heaven knows after raising my husband and his brothers, she deserves the title of "Queen Mum".) No, she's more to me than just the mom that came with the whole "deluxe husband package". She's my confidante, my sister, my sounding board and my shoulder to cry on. She's one whose opinions and advice truly matter to me because, believe me, she's "been there, done that." We have laughed together, cried together; sometimes simultaneously, and grown closer because of it. We've argued and disagreed with one another, and grown closer in spite of it. She's seen almost all of my children come into this world...I'll forgive her for missing the last one....and has stayed by them like a Guardian Angel ever since. Hers is the hand I want to hold when times are tough.......(brief intermission while I wait for the tears to stop)....and hers is the voice I want to hear when I feel completely drained of my sanity. When it seems that not only does my cup NOT runneth over, but is bone dry and shattered into a hundred pieces on the floor. For somehow, in her effortless way, she picks up the pieces, hot glues them back together, paints a pretty flower on it and fills it up with a fruit smoothie so that I can go on. She is amazing. I love Linda. She is my Balm of Gilead.
Right about now you might be wondering where the title of this post fits in (you with the short term memory problems might want to take this opportunity to glance back at it). Well, here goes....
The other day when I was lucky enough to see Linda, we were standing in her front yard admiring the walnut tree. Now, the fact that this walnut tree has survived all the grandkids is amazing enough. It's been a rocket ship, a fort, a pirate ship and a monkey house among dozens of other things. When my husband and I were married, many moons ago, the tree was not very impressive as far as trees go. Now it towers over the house. It's branches have reached out in every direction, making it full and lush. It has earned it's place in the yard and is proud of it. Linda and I stood there drawing the obvious correlations between the walnut tree and our family tree. How they've both grown so much over the years, how they're both full of nuts...you get the picture. So I was trying to draw on that for a post, but the idea just wasn't flowing. I kept coming back to Linda and how she has loved and nurtured that tree from the time it was entrusted into her care. How it, like her family, required constant love and attention; and how both trees, walnut and family, need her. Both trees have flourished and are enjoying the full measure of their creation because of her. As we've all branched out into new phases in our lives, one thing remains constant; at the root of our family, at the center of all we do....there she is. Waiting to love us, kiss it better, pat us on the back or tell us to "suck it up". She is a gardener in the true sense of the word, "one whose occupation it is to make, tend and care for a garden". And I say she has done a right fine job.