Planting Hope

Yesterday morning, bright and early, two very polite and well-organized young men showed up in front of our house and began pulling plants and equipment from a trailer. One started breaking up huge clods of dirt mixed with tree roots, while the other one sprayed paint on the ground to mark where the landscaping beds would go.

They called us out just before Ryan left for work, to get our approval on the placement of all the plastic pots temporarily housing our plants. We loved it, so everyone got to work: Ryan at Love Inc, me at the kitchen table, and the guys outside. 

They worked hard and diligently and were mostly done by lunch. They slid all the plants into the ground, including the weeping cherry tree I ordered for Ryan's birthday gift and a little perennial daisy Mom gave me on Mother's Day. I'd been keeping it in a planter until landscaping day. 

While they worked in the front, the earth movers appeared again in the back, leveling out the yard even more. Between the two, I had free pet sitting all day long!

It was quite the exciting day around here, for sure! But what surprised me (both of us, really) most of all, was this:

The arrival of that handful of plants brought a whole new level of hope to our hearts! It sounds crazy, I know. It feels crazy even typing it. But it's also true.

When we first got married and lived in Marion, we had the grandest little backyard. We talked about that yard just the other day, actually. Some of you who have been reading here a long time might remember that first backyard. If you could get past the fairly steady stream of sirens in the background, it really was a serene little spot. 

When we moved to Kokomo, our backyard was wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open. No fence. No trees. No real landscaping. No shade. No privacy. Until we added the sun porch not long before we moved, we didn't have any little space of our own back there. Once we added that...ahhhhh, joy. 

Then we went to WillowBridge, and although it had a fenced in backyard, it was shared with all the tenants, so we haven't had ANY kind of space to ourselves for the past two years. I don't think either of us realized how dearly we missed it. I don't think we knnew how much we longed for a serene little spot to simply be.

We came here, we knew the outside spaces would have to be finished, and we even (truly!) knew it would probably be this fall before anything was really livable in an outdoor space. But as March turned into April and then May and now June and not one thing happened to show true life coming into being back there, it got harder than we expected.

The two Indiana extremes have been the stickiest of mud or clothes-hugging dust. One way or the other, our shoes are not the same. Lexi needs a bath, no matter what she walks in. We can't put chairs out there. It's wide open to all the neighbors. We've missed our little spots of joy. 

And then yesterday, these two young men showed up, and they stuck some plants in the ground, and suddenly, we didn't look like a house that had washed up in the middle of a field. We looked ever so slightly polished.

Sure, the rocks are hugging dirt. The yard isn't in yet. The driveway hasn't been replaced. I'm going to have to sit this entire season out for pretty flowers. But we have signs of life. And that has planted so much hope in our hearts. SO much hope. 

Isn't it crazy what even the tiniest bit of hope will do for a soul?