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The Pruning Chore


Every January begins the time to prune. I arm myself with gloves and long sleeves to combat the roses' thorny stalks. How such a beautiful plant can have such a painful stem is beyond me. Even with my careful clipping I come away with bleeding pokes and scratches. I then begin to trim the vine that robustly rules our eastern yard. Amazing that it has grown so thick these past fourteen years. If only it had been that way when we had first moved in, maybe ol' Qausimoto, our terrier mix, never would have learned to scale and jump the fence it covers. Yet the vine hides the scars of our towering Palm tree that cracked and broke its blocks. Now to look at it all, you never would have guessed the former stories.

Pain is always a part of my life. It lurks among the beauty and the bounty of my days. It always comes with lessons for me to choose to learn. Like the lesson of faithful love, even when the one you love jumps the fence and runs away. Or the one who grows up so fast and tall that it cannot be contained by the boundaries of your wall. Or even when it seems such simple words to one another pierce one's heart so deep. I've learned to love in spite of; I've learned to let go of that I can't control; I've learned instead to trust the Creator instead of the created. I've learned the worth is in the waiting, and that every Spring time, the beauty will trump the pain.

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