Life is Like a Lemon Tree
One of the boys got my wife a small lemon tree for Mother’s Day. The tree itself was a great idea (thanks, Jane!) but the getting of the tree posed what I didn’t realize was a big dilemma for the boy who got it.
We were at the garden center and my son picked the tree he
wanted. Then he said, “All we have to do is keep it alive until Sunday.” It was
the Thursday before Mother’s Day. “Once I give it to Mom, she’ll keep it alive.
But (he looked off into the middle distance here) it’s up to us to keep it
alive until then.”
There’s so much to unpack from this statement and most of it cracks
me up.
First off, to a 12-year-old boy, keeping a plant alive for
three days is apparently…asking a lot? We got it on Thursday night and he was
going to give it to my wife on Sunday morning so really it was like two days.
Yet, the hesitation and concern that the plant was going to be dead come Sunday
was strong with this one.
Secondly, he had complete trust in Mom being able to keep the
plant alive once she had it. That trust is well-founded here. But Dad was privy
to the secret plant and that didn’t seem to increase his confidence that the
plant would make it. I may have a questionable reputation for keeping potted
plants alive but I didn’t think that he was aware of that. Or that it included a
mere 48 hours of not killing a plant.
Thirdly, his thought process (once the plant is in Mom’s care
it’ll be fine) demonstrated an implicit trust in Mom that parents want for
their kids. You want them to think that once something is in Dad or Mom’s hands
it’s taken care of and off the kid’s plate so to speak.
It would be crushing to pull back the curtain and reveal the
staggering scope of things Dad and Mom are taking care of that the kids have no
idea about. Not only are things like mortgages, insurance, crime, war, severe
weather, and medical care often beyond their grasp, but for a while those words
don’t have any power up against Dad and Mom.
We know our limitations (potted plants apparently). And just
like my son looked dubiously at the responsibility of keeping the tree alive on
his own for three days, I know that without Providence we fair no better
against the responsibility of keeping our family going in the face of all the
outside forces in this world.