Renewal

Sounds of a cartoon playing in the next room drone at the back of my head occasionally punctuated by the squeals of Kay and Cee. I smile to myself, shake my head and resume working on whatever I was doing when my mind registered these sounds. Lifting my head, fresh green shoots catch my eye from the window sill in the living room. It almost shocks me with its greenness. My mind goes places it shouldn’t.

The pot which now boasts at least five or six healthy thulasi shoots was a barren, lifeless bit of mud when the new year started. When we were out-of-town adding Kay and Cee to our family, our little family of plants suffered. One plant survived the three long weeks we were away while our cherished thulasi, the one we had nurtured for the past four years gave up. We returned home to a lifeless stick of a plant. Even among the joy of new children we mourned this plant that was almost a child.

Winter gave way to spring and a relentless K kept watering the stick in the hopes it would awaken again. A few weeks ago, giving up the last vestiges of hope, K uprooted the stick and mourned it in his own way. Lo and behold a few days later, we saw tiny green buds peeping from among the brownness of the mulch. Confident they were weeds, a few days passed with intermittent watering. They surprised us being thulasi plants being born from the seeds of the previous plant.

Watching these little buds grow into robust little saplings, it stuck me this morning how reminiscent they were of my life and feelings over the past few months. Almost like a phoenix they rose from the ashes renewing me with a sense of hope and wonderment at life and nature.

Watching them catch the light of the sun this morning casting a bright green hue on its surroundings, I feel enthused and happy. For persisting. For believing.

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