When my beloved sister-in-law, Anne, passed away last year, we added her ashes to the soil at the base of three magnolia bushes we planted in her honor. One bush is in our yard, but the other two are in the woods, where they are surrounded by wilderness.
I’ve spent a lot of time this spring removing the weedy overgrowth from around those magnolias, trying to give them air and light so they can thrive. A strange thought occurred as I was yanking out the ragweed, the nettles, the poison ivy. Those weeds are arising from Anne’s ashes every bit as much as the magnolias!
What a perfect metaphor. We wanted to convert Anne’s earthly remains into something beautiful and perfect, but Anne herself, though quite beautiful, was not perfect. No one and nothing is perfect. We humans are always sprouting undesirable overgrowth, and if we want to give the beautiful parts of us any chance to thrive, we must continuously pull those weeds, pull those weeds.
It makes me wonder if I could have done more to help Anne rid her psyche of its weedy overgrowth while she was alive. Maybe then she could’ve been happier. Maybe then she might’ve thrived, instead of dying so young.
Ah, well. All I can do now is pull the weedy overgrowth away from her earthly remains and work with greater determination to eliminate the nasty weeds that are choking off my own neglected psyche. And while I work on both these tasks, I thank Anne, once again, for helping me to become a better person.
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