Worth Saving
By Sara Koert
@sarakoert
A peony in my front garden bed bloomed a brilliant magenta year after year with little effort on my part until suddenly, it didn’t. A humid summer caused a powdery mildew disease to cover its leaves, and the condition became chronic. The next year, the disease took over even earlier in the season, and the peony produced only three pitiful blooms. I researched the best fungicidal spray to prevent and treat the disease and used the precious few moments before school pickup to buy it from my local garden center. Even though I stuck to the weekly spray schedule listed on the bottle, after a month it stopped working. I resorted to a home remedy of daily baking soda applications, but I couldn’t keep up with the burdensome schedule. With a garden full of other plants and two active children to care for, I decided it wasn’t worth the fuss.
One overcast afternoon, I grabbed a shovel from the garage and walked out to purvey the garden. When my eyes landed on the bedraggled peony plant, I let out a long sigh of surrender and with two quick, precise plunges into the soil with my shovel, dug out the plant. I threw the root ball into the edge of the woods in my backyard and wished it luck. It’s not worth saving, I thought. It’s too much work to make it healthy again.
***
I glance at my watch and quickly begin applying mascara. The sound of my boys squealing and wrestling on the other side of the bathroom door draws my attention. My chest tightens, and I shove the mascara into my makeup bag. I throw open the bathroom door and walk into the living room in a huff. My energetic boys cease their movement and look up at me with guilt evident in their wide eyes. Only one of them is dressed in a faded graphic t-shirt and sweatpants, the other still in red plaid Christmas pajamas two sizes too small, and I turn to see empty lunch boxes on the table. Cortisol courses through my veins as commands and accusations start flying from my mouth.
The focus of my thunderous anger is on Lewis. “How on earth are you not even dressed yet!? You have so little self control that I can’t even leave you for five minutes before you start messing around?! Go get dressed immediately!” I then turn to lecture my oldest, Pascal: “How old are you? It’s your responsibility to not distract your little brother who already struggles to stay focused. I thought I could leave you for a moment, but I guess I have to wake up at 4 a.m. to get myself ready and then hold your hand the entire morning because you can’t be trusted.” Both boys droop their shoulders and walk away in silence, the laughter in the air replaced by a palpable gloom.
Somehow, between parenting toddlers and parenting upper-elementary-aged kids, I overinflated my expectations of my children’s self-control.
Maybe I presume they are mature because they use big words and talk about existential things, like the time Lewis walked into my room in the dark early hours of the morning and exclaimed, “I’m exceptionally dizzy.” Or the time Pascal asked, “When do you think I will die?” Maybe I miscalculated their ability to have self control because they can heat up their own popcorn in the microwave, read in complete silence for an hour, and create massive worlds in Minecraft. Or maybe it’s just because I’m tired.
One day I had to do everything to keep my kids alive—cut their food into tiny bits, brush their teeth, and put their shoes on—and the next, I expected them to independently follow the same schedule they have had every school morning for the past one hundred days, without a single mistake.
The boys continue their school morning routine like expressionless robots, all of us avoiding eye contact with one another, as I continue to nit pick their apathetic pace. The next five minutes are a blur of pretzel rolls and cheese sticks thrown into bags, library books located, and shoes put on feet. By the time the car doors slam shut and I back the car away from the house to the sound of clicking seatbelts, we are at least ten minutes late.
I glance back at them through the rear view mirror with pursed lips, my boiling blood practically perceptible as heat waves emanating from my head. This morning didn’t go the way I wanted, and I continue to let them know it. My sighs and cold glares are hypocritical against the backdrop of worship music drifting through the air. We pull into the drop-off line at school, and as I turn around to say goodbye, I realize tears are streaming down Lewis’ rosy cheeks. My boiling blood flash freezes, and my heart breaks. I then catch the look of regret in Pascal’s eyes as he says, “I forgot my coat.”
***
When the weather begins to warm the earth in the spring, weeds take it as their sign to get busy growing. On a Saturday afternoon with clear cerulean skies and with the motivation only known by those who have been stuck inside all winter long, I decide it’s time to rid my flower beds of all the flourishing weeds to give my plants a fighting chance. I fill two buckets with weeds and take inventory of which plants are thriving and which need help. When I reach the end of my bed where the peony once was, I stare in shock at a maroon-lined stem and tiny palm of leaves protruding from the earth. A piece of root must have been left in the soil, I think. It feels like a tiny miracle.
***
On the ten-minute car ride home from school to retrieve the coat, I leave the radio off and sit in silence with my thoughts.
I did this. I caused these tears.
I made Pascal forget his coat because I was prodding him like he was a stock animal.
I set up their day in the worst possible way.
Why can’t I be a better mom? A less quick to anger mom? A mom who corrects with love and not yelling?
It’s too hard to make my heart healthy again, I think. Maybe it’s not worth saving.
***
Whenever I find myself weeding the far corner of my garden where the miraculous peony shoot stands tall, I debate over the merits of letting it grow. Nervous to allow it to stay and invite disease to return, but mesmerized by the healthy shiny leaves, I ultimately decide to let it be. I stand resolute in the hope that things will be different this year.
***
I pull into the driveway and rush into my kid’s disheveled play room. After a brief search, I locate scrap paper from a pile and shove wrappers and markers off of one of their desks onto the floor. How many times have I yelled at my children out of impatience over the past decade? The heavy weight of demanding my own way lays across my shoulders, and a tension headache works its way up behind my right eye. It occurs to me that the inconvenience of returning to school is actually a grace from God—I can’t undo what I said this morning, but I can apologize for it. God is giving me a chance to right my wrong. With a red Crayola marker I scrawl out an apology and an I love you and rummage for some special candy to deliver along with it. I place the peace tokens in their lockers undetected and move on with my day, silently praying they can move on with theirs, too.
***
Soon after discovering the surviving peony, the yearly urge to add more plants to the garden welled up in me. My husband and I budgeted some money for an outdoor project that we decided to skip this year, so I treated myself to a plant shopping spree. After selecting annuals for my pots, I began to peruse the perennial section. The blooming peonies caught my eye and I thought, Why not? When I unloaded the plants onto my front lawn, I brought the beautiful, light pink peony to its rightful location. I planted it next to the shoot of the former plant, making sure they both had room to grow. Disease may threaten to come back, but I already witnessed that it’s possible for them to heal. I promise myself to not give up this time.
***
After school, Pascal says he has something for me as he rustles through his overflowing backpack. I motion him to follow me into the living room. The brilliant afternoon light streams through the windows, and I catch a glance of the peony plants standing delightfully in the corner of the garden, imbibing me with hope. He pulls out the world’s tiniest lime green envelope. “I made it out of an arrow-shaped sticky note!” he exclaims. “Open it!” I open the miniscule flap of the envelope, the size of a letter fit for a chipmunk, and I’m already smiling. Whatever this is, I’m impressed by the effort. With great care, I unfold the piece of paper tucked inside, orange marker transferring onto my fingertips because he colored the entire piece of paper for effect.
“Dear Mom, thanks for the Twix cookie. I haven’t eaten it yet but will eat it for first snack. Sorry for what happened today. I shouldn’t of played and I should of packed for school. Also, thanks for bringing my coat, too. Will you forgive me for what I did? Love, Pascal”
Tears begin to sting my eyes in an overflow of conviction and thankfulness. This is reconciliation. This is God rewriting my story by moving in the heart of my child. This is Him springing forth a new thing and making a river in the desert.
I release my grip from the lie that it’s impossible for me to change, and from the moth eaten hope that I can do it on my own, and fall into arms of grace.
I pull him in for a hug, his head now at the height of the top of my chest, and I say, “Of course I forgive you buddy … will you forgive me too?”
Guest essay written by Sara Koert. Sara is a believer, tech nerd’s wife for thirteen years, and mom of two awesome boys. She has enjoyed nurturing creativity in the margins of motherhood through garden design, watercolor calligraphy, and now writing. She is an Awe-seeker in nature, floral prints enthusiast, roasted veggie lover, fan of west Michigan walks made even better with friends, and connoisseur of heart-touching and theology heavy reads. Join her on this journey through ordinary motherhood, where she finds joy in the extraordinary things God is doing by following along with her writing via her Instagram and Substack, This Joy is Mine.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.