The Miracle of Mostly Dead

At the end of last summer, the cherry tomato plant I’d put in a pot on my front porch and watched grow, withered away in the late summer heat.  Exhausted from its efforts to grow, bloom, and bear fruit all pretty much simultaneously, the stem and leaves browned, dried up, and crumpled back down toward the earth.

It was gone.

Being the avid gardener I am *ahem*, the “empty” pot sat on the porch all winter.  Rain, snow flurries, and various and assorted little critters found themselves landing in the pot before moving on.

As spring I arrived I had grand intentions of planting more “summer” vegetables in my pots.  The best I did was create our fairy garden.  While that feeds our hearts and souls, nothing was planted that would feed our bodies.

And then, one day, I saw a sprig of green rising up from the twisted brown tentacles of last year’s plant. I wasn’t sure what it was until, on a whim, while I was watering all my other “front porch greenery” I decided to water the little green twig in the soil.  The smell was unmistakable.  There’s nothing like the smell of tomato plants.

Well I’ll be.

That little plant wasn’t dead.  It was mostly dead.  (There’s a difference, I know–we’ve watched “The Princess Bride” over and over many times.)

And mostly isn’t all the way.  Bless it.

It quietly came back.  And today, this happened.

Isn’t that amazing?

You can take away from this that if you are a lazy gardener and let things slide, every now and again you might get lucky.

Or you could think about how amazing it is that there was still life under all that darkness, all that death–resilient–life that didn’t look like life as we know it but it was there all the same, gaining strength to blossom and grow and bear sweet and beautiful fruit all over again.

Either way.  Up to you.

But yeah.  Life.  There even when you can’t see it.

I needed that reminder.  That’s the stuff miracles are made of.  Believing in something you cannot see.  Believing in the possibility.

Love to all.