I brushed my bare hands back and forth through the soil contemplating where I wanted to plant this year’s cosmos. These flowers make the beginner feel like a master gardener since they thrive in nearly any soil condition. They are a faithful friend popping up looking their very best even in seasons when I am most depleted. 

I made lines in the soil while reminiscing my first experience with cosmos. I’ll never forget the day we tossed handfuls of seeds like prayers from a mesh bag until they covered the ground. Day after day I watched the flower garden from the living room windows decorated with fingerprints and sticky faces as I preferred it in that season. In the waiting, I made plans to fill bottles that rested in a wooden box I pasted upon the words “More Love to Thee”. I collected second-hand teapots that cried out for cuttings from my garden. Time was fragile, but I refused to stop dreaming. I watched and waited for beauty to break through the most impossible conditions.

I could depend on cosmos to show up for my family. I shared my plans for these blooms with my children. They knew what to do even if I wasn’t there. I was delighted to take pictures of the first few flowers that danced in the summer breeze. I captured every moment of my children with bundles of cosmos and wildflowers wrapped in wet paper towels. 

My nature boy’s dimples and bright blue eyes like his Daddy sparkled in the sun as he handed me a bouquet. My sweet girl still had her baby teeth. Her new haircut fell perfectly under her soft chin as she lifted that teapot in the air to show me the colors she collected. I still see my husband in that faded green t-shirt almost blending in with the bushy stems and delicate blooms on that hot summer day. He leaned in deep and determined to fill the vase with only the most beautiful flowers. The dainty pinks, purple and white fluttered their perfect petals as he proudly carried them down the hill to me. 

The memories became too heavy for my healing heart and teardrops flooded the ground beneath me. I continued dropping seeds into the earth and gently covered them. I wondered how I got to this place simply content to be hunched over dirt. 

Seems like yesterday I stuffed everything I could into the backseat of my first car. There wasn’t enough room for my hopes and dreams so I had to leave them behind. I was naive to how difficult it was going to be as a young wife building a life I loved in a lonely farming community. Never imagined anything beautiful could spring up from the desert soil in my heart. Everything I ever wanted died as I was given all that I ever needed. 

There was a time I was rather unimpressed with the simplicity of a bouquet of cosmos, but that was only when comparing it to other eye-catching blooms and unaware of this fascinating ability to overcome.

I prayed over my work and picked myself off the ground. I clapped the dirt off my hands. Smacking the dust off my clothes, I stepped back and admired the earth I dug up knowing once again cosmos are going to bloom in the most impossible of conditions. 

I walked the perimeter of our property day after day doing my best to avoid the briars and tall grass. My husband eventually mowed down a path for me with the rusty old mower that only started with a prayer and a few swift kicks to the engine. It usually rested on blocks under a great blue tarp, but the summer rain still always flooded the seat. My mechanic man somehow kept that piece of junk metal running for three years with his praying hands. 

I loved climbing to the top of the hill near the immature apple tree and a row of blueberry bushes to see the mountain view. I would look down admiringly on my children completing their daily habits of caring for the chickens and rabbit. My sweet girl would deliver fresh hay and clover clippings to the cotton white Holland Lop. My nature boy would rename each chicken as he learned their new behaviors. 

The children would eventually make their way up the hill to collect vegetables in a flower basket I found at the local second-hand store. We would gather bunches of spinach and rush inside to make spinach eggs with the fresh eggs gifted from our neighbor’s chickens. They were the dirtiest eggs, but nothing a little soapy water couldn’t wash away. My young farmers would discuss over breakfast when our chickens start layin’ soon. We never did gather eggs of our own at that house, but we sure dreamed over many meals.

I never wanted to live a homesteading life tucked away in the country but learned to embrace it with my family. It wasn’t long before it grew in fondness to me. Life was messy in the country and as time went by I recognized I didn’t have to pretend I had it all together anymore. For most of my life, I liked to think of myself as a city girl but found who I was meant to be while living the life I never wanted. Life brought me low on that humble piece of farmland. I learned to kick off the high heels in every area of my life and it never felt better. 

I often wondered if the neighbor heard my tears at night while he was outside drinking. He would stumble onto the deck during the day with eggs, bags of chicken quarters, and corn. I thought his delivery timing was quite odd at times. He never made his deliveries when the man of the house was home. As an old hard working man, I think he knew what it does to a man when they need help feeding their family.

The hospital kept calling. They threatened to take our wages. It was all too much on a person waiting to die. I would zip up my dirty gray boots and run for the hill. I would shout to the maker of those mountains begging for my help to come quickly. 

It was mostly hard times at that house. My memory has a way of being kind. I dance around the details hoping not to get too close to the pain that wrapped my fingers around the pill bottle late one night. Waiting to die was torture.

Their hearts broke the day a lady came to take every single chicken with the barn red chicken coop. A daddy with a great big beard came with his little girl to take our fluffy white blue-eyed bunny. A young farming family adopted our silver-gray kitten, Lavender. We didn’t have a choice. We had to let them go. 

I played my childhood piano one last time before the men came to load it on a trailer to take it away. I was getting pretty good at letting go. I knew I couldn’t take it with me where I was headed anyway. The only thing that I couldn’t quite loosen my grip on was my two precious ones. 

My nature boy engraved initials inside a heart on the shade tree in the front yard. He was always looking for a reason to use that silly pocket knife. The kids announced mommy and daddy now have their very own I love you tree. It sure felt like we were failing at love, but they must’ve seen the way we still looked at each other. We wanted more happy memories together, but we wasted far too much time fighting because we were scared. He would tell me of all the ways he wished life could’ve been different.

I’ll never forget that foolish old preacher of the country church. I was watching the beautiful Blue Ridges out the church window when he told me he was tired of watching me struggle through the Christian life. His words only added to my pain. Church was no longer a safe place for my suffering. 

Every morning I would nestle into the corner of the couch and study the scriptures by candlelight so I didn’t wake the children. I opened the living room curtains just enough to watch the mountains appear with the morning light. The deer, wild rabbits, and hummingbirds would visit outside the window soon before my early riser would join me. The days were heart-wrenching painfully lonely and quiet but welcomed the inexpressible sweetness of Christ to come near. 

We had to start driving Daddy to work because we were down to one car. We would stop by our favorite gardener’s house on our journey home. She would fill hungry bellies and pour cups of tea and warmed honey milk. Someone always got to use the special miniature spoon. We would hold hands and say a prayer. The kids would soon roll around with their favorite golden doodle and run barefoot in the grass. They would peek in at the cats looking out the windows next door. On their way back inside they would grab pieces of fresh mint to chew on. 

The deepest darkness overwhelmed my soul. I never knew such a place even existed. I sat at her kitchen table staring at my now cold cup of tea. She took the kids to the piano in the other room. She began to sing truth to our broken hearts. “It is good to sing your praises and to thank you, O Most High…” This song became my weapon against the darkness. 

We pulled out of the long gravel driveway in that little red sedan. The kids cried as they said goodbye to the life they loved. I watched the for sale sign grow smaller in the mirror. I was relieved I wasn’t going to die at that old country house.