Grandma's Garden

While writing about my “field trip” with my sponsor I had an epiphany and came up with my connection for this week. In my previous blog entry, I mentioned that it has been a while since I’ve been in the garden. My grandmother was the one that turned me on and off to gardening because she used to make us plant flowers with her in the splintering hot summer each year. At first, it was a lot fun because my sisters, my aunt, my cousin and I were able to bond and have fun while my grandma sat back and sipped on her iced tea. But, toward the end we all started getting older and we began to realize that we didn’t really get much out of planting the flowers but a serious tan and no pay for all of our hard work. It took me all of this time to realize why my grandmother made us do all of that hard manual labor all of those summers. She wanted to teach us that bonding with family was important and that hard work benefits you in the long run. I’ve noticed that since all of that “tough love” stopped our family has been a little distant and we don’t really have that bond that we use to have. It turns out that all of the hard work wasn’t just to make grandma’s garden look beautiful. It actually helped shape us into the people that we are today. I don’t think that I would ever want to take back those long hot summers simply because it was the glue that helped keep us all connected. Another lesson learned from Momma Lou.