No admonition, no condemnation...

I slept until 4:00 this afternoon.  This afternoon!  SIGH.  That I do so frustrates me.

Around 6:00, I dragged myself upstairs and put on my puttering-about-the-yard clothes and headed over to Sandra's house.  A while ago, she told me that I could have the day lilies in her yard.  My own lily bed has been long neglected, since I forgot to mulch it last summer, waiting for the lilies to all die back.  Now is the time to do so, especially since the bags of mulch have been waiting in the garage for several months now.  But I have a plan.

Since things started cropping up a year ago last Spring, I have been moving all the stray lilies I have found in the yard to that bed.  When she was here last, my mother suggested that I move them about in the bed so that there is a bit less randomness before I toss down the mulch.  You see, I have day lilies and Easter lilies in the bed, with the Easter lilies mainly in the furthermost third of the bed.  Well, a friend gave me a bird bath, so I came up with the idea to dig up all the lilies in the bed (the soil is ridiculously easy to dig about it) and then arrange the lilies in five sections, with the Easter lilies in the second and fourth sections and the bird bath in the center of the bed.  Since Sandra's lilies are smaller than mine (I never saw them in bloom), I thought I would put them in the center section so as to not over-power the bird bath.

Digging up Sandra's lilies did not take all that long...but giving her a bit of visual rest, in a way that would have meaning to Sandra, took about three hours really hard labor.  First I pruned, because she really, really did not like most of the bushes in her back yard and they were wildly overgrown.  While I inherited a yard with surprising bits of plant joy in it when I purchased the phone, Sandra inherited a mess.  A real mess.

After removing the lilies and pruning and weeding, Sandra realized that I was out in her yard working and came out to visit.  I asked her if I could only dig up two bushes (thinking about how much strength I had left), I asked her if she wanted me to do the bushes I hacked down to about a foot above the ground that she would still see coming and going to her car in the garage or the two bushes along the side of the garage that had died.  She chose the dead bushes.  I dug them up.  Then I dug up the bushes I had hacked on (thinking someone else would dig them up for her).

As a final bit of work, I asked her if she wanted me to trim two of the smaller bushes she hated that were along the side of the garage so they were more like the ones I had pruned for her.  She said yes, but she also said, again, how much she hated them.  I looked at them, thought about the price I would pay for continuing to work, and set about digging them up.  They were, by the way, ridiculously east to do so because whoever planted them never broke the root ball.  Both of them had roots that still looked like they came fresh out of a pot.

So, I turned my attention to the two rather large hated bushes, thinking perhaps....  They were, as you may have guessed, much, much harder to dig up.  My strength was waning and I knew that point of no return would be coming soon.  Only, I wanted to do something. I wanted to give her something that would mean a lot to her, even if no one else understands. I wanted her to have the visual rest that has been a blessing to me.  I started on one and then switched to the other, thinking it looked more promising and its removal might be the galvanizing force I would need to tackle the other one.  With her help, the hated bushes are gone.

That left this monstrosity of a yucca.  If you are a yucca fan, well, you will just have to forgive me.  I happen to think that they belong in the desert and in homes landscaped in a desert...NOT in the mid-east.  We both started chopping, hacking, and pulling at the thing, which was so large it was more like three bushes.  And then I started digging.  She really did more work than I, but I am proud to say all that remains is the center tap root--the GIGANTIC center tap root.  [I suggested finding some fellow male seminary student to come vent some upsettedness upon the root.]

Before leaving, I also hastily transplant to things for her to give a bit of balance to what was left.  [I hope they survive the moving.]  

A few times, Sandra said she did not want me to do anything that would be too much for me.  I rather bluntly told her that I had already passed that point.  But I knew the cost of what I was doing and I wanted to do this for her.  After all, I spend so much time in the GREEN chair as it is, what would it matter if I am in more agony for a while when I am there?  Really, the only cost I am reluctant to pay, the only cost I will dread, is the agony of the tendinitis in both elbows that now flares if I use my forearms for any length of time at all.  But even that is a price I am willing to pay, knowing that as my friend comes home each day and walks from the garage to her house, she will no longer be laying eyes upon such a messy yard and nine bushes she hated.

Sandra gave me a gift today that was far greater than the lilies and the bricks I took from her yard (to make a flat base for the bird bath in the lily bed).  She let me work.  She did not lecture me or berate me or tell me what to do.  She let me know I did not have to do all that I was doing.  She listened to me as I explained it is better for me to do a spurt of work and lounge about than try to tiny bits over a long period of time.  And she let me exhaust myself in her yard.  You might think that between the weed and bush removal, she got the better end of the bargain, but you would be wrong.  Utterly.

I needed the physical labor, even though I have grown so much weaker.  I needed to be able to give to someone else.  And I needed to not be forced into someone else's idea of  how I am or what I should  or should not be doing.

Yes, I am sore.  Yes, I shall also have to wait longer until I can embark upon the plan for my lily bed.  But I shall endure the pain in the coming days with a bit of joy, knowing that Sandra is enjoying visual rest brought about bushes that she hated--and the thought of the work it would take to remove them--being a thing of the past.

No admonition.  No condemnation.  Just freedom.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!