Brown grass can work

It's not a mid-life crisis, it's not a mid-life crisis, it's not a mid-life crisis... well... maybe it is. Anyway, lately I have been in hot pursuit of a dream job. I have jumped the proverbial fence to feel the lush, cool, spring green grass between my toes, to experience great challenges, awesome mentors, and a salary that could buy my happiness. The pursuit cooled to lukewarm this week as I realized the sacrifices I will need to make to continue the race to the finish line. Our family will be separated for the first time. It's like a limb is being slowing removed... painfully and slowly and never to be reattached. And I wonder... is the grass really greener.

A little something I wrote about a decade ago... just found it on a floppy disk.

The Grass is Always Greener

Our neighbor was a woman slender and tall in statue, and even though she would spend hours each day working in her yard, she always appeared crisp, clean and freshly pressed. She amazed me. Through the delicate iron fence with pink roses caressing every bend, I watched her. I was lost in the beauty and transported to another place.

Her name was Mrs. Edmondson. She and her husband were never able to have children, so I was certain she resented my parents’ mob in more ways than one. I was convinced, as a sat alone on the last strap of a worn out swing set, that she didn’t even know I existed. I was sure with the age difference she believed my sixteen year old brother to be the end of the chaos. I hoped to remain invisible as long as possible.

The sound of my mother’s call snatched me back into the reality of our yard. There were no flowers, not much grass, and the shed leaned to the left after bearing the weight of the overflow of our attic going on twenty years. Thank God the irrepressible honeysuckle vine covered nearly every inch of our rusted chain link fence and blocked most of the view. No one in my house seemed to notice the astounding difference between our yard and the Edmondsons’.

Mama enjoyed knitting, sewing and reading, all of which are indoor activities. My college-aged sisters were more concerned with their hair and make-up than the fact that our house and yard needed help. My brother took the disregard a step further and wore trenches in the wet clay of our front yard with the tires of our mother’s 1959 Chevy wagon. My father, on the other hand loved to garden. But not roses. He loved his vegetable garden.

Daddy was a good ol’ country boy. He knew how to grow a garden. Living in the city was not his ideal, but he made the best of it. My mother summed his attitude up in her frequently issued protests, “You could sit right there and let this house fall down around you," and I believe he could have. But he knew how to grow a garden. By August the corn nearly touched my bedroom windows on the second floor, and there were enough tomatoes to share with the neighbors on both sides of us and behind us. The garden was our redemption, and it made us the envy of the entire neighborhood.

Daddy’s garden made me proud to be a McLaughlin. He taught me to nurture the earth. And wouldn’t you know it. I love to garden. Vegetables, roses and all. It’s my legacy. Rows of red and white inpatients line up beside bright brilliant yellow butterfly plants along our walk. Lilies bloom in our courtyard while St. Francis kneels by a bubbling fountain. Closer to the door rocks shaped like hearts gathered from a riverbed are stacked under a suspended angel. A white wicker chair greets visitors, and I know my Daddy is there.