The window box of my kitchen window was flowerless last year. Summer 2020 had only half-heartedness as far as color, bloom and tradition.

Days of sanitizing my arms, my car, my doorknobs, my conversations in a way, all caused by a virus.

Life was compromised by fear, animosity prompted by that fear and questions that seemed very unfair until I remembered no one knows what to do.

They don’t know either.

Fear is so much like anger.

Down the hall, leaning against the wall are two guitars, both in need of repair, one only worth fixing most likely. I’ll take it to my friend’s shop today.

I believe in its redemption after several hard years of refusing to let it go, but maybe uncertainty over whether it has importance.

This year, the geraniums are planted already.

Bordered by soft white tiny flowers, the vibrant red in the center tells me good morning and good evening as I stand in the kitchen.

Geraniums were my mama’s favorite, not necessarily mine. My daddy played guitar although I have only one vague memory of hearing him.

I only have the stories of others, stories of how he loved it.

How it loved him.

My mama taught me about plants, water early before the sun gets hot and again before it goes to bed.

Commitment leads to beauty.

I’m close to my parents long passed away because I plant red geraniums and I keep a guitar next to a nightstand.

It’s a weak substitution for conversations we never had, for reconciliation and resolution of hurts I may have caused them and they caused me.

Still, it feels perfect, the comfort of a red geranium and a silent guitar.

I’ve had chances to use the word “imperfect” as a description of my parenting with my children.

It feels like a balm to be able to tell them what they already know.

I pray that’s the way they see it, a gesture unlike stuff or sacrifice of sleep or even monetary indulgences.

I pray they’ve seen my heart quite a lot and enough.

The way I see the heart of my mama in my window box geraniums and in a quietly resting guitar down the hall.

It feels like honor. It feels like they are near, like peace. I embrace it.

“Dedicate your children to God and point them in the way that they should go, and the values they’ve learned from you will be with them for life.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭22:6‬ ‭TPT‬‬