Gathering No Moss

I often ask all of the little Thompsons and one sort of medium/large Thompson to give me fifteen minutes a day assisting with some task. Many times it’s just picking up the mess from grammas denture debacle, or organizing boxes.

The need on this fine morning was the moving of “Gargantuan Boulders” – their description. (They weren’t that big, the pebbles – my description) from the back of the old blue truck to the English-style cottage garden in my front yard.

Currently my English-style cottage garden consists of dirt and petrified Mormon crickets, but I envision it as a lovely and lush green space full of flowers and fauna (except for the path under the tree where the early Mormon pioneers must have buried their nuclear waste – based on the fact that nothing will grow there.) I picture it to be like a lovely Grimm tale – with a real life witch from next door, who comes over frequently to tattle on our wandering, barely carnivores mutt.

When working with my children, I like to take the opportunity to share my insights and life wisdom while they are a captive audience. So, covered in dirt and filthy with crushed concrete dust, I stood, cleared my throat and prepared to spout out some really wise stuff.

My daughter, the annoying one, noticing my spouting stance, beat me to the punch by interrupting with her own life lesion. “Our petty existence,” she preaches, her face streaked with dirt and sarcasm, “is like a pile of rocks.” She says this, her imitation of me way too accurate to be extemporaneous. “We are nothing on our own until we are gathered and cemented into a community with love as the mortar.” The little Thompsons, and one medium Thompson laugh – not because they think it was funny, but because they think that, if sufficiently charmed, I will let them off the “rock moving” hook.

Ok, it was a little funny. But we still have rocks to move.

This brings me to my point, and, yes, I do have one. It is this: Life goes on. It goes on through funny or sad, interesting or boring, cheery or depressing. That is the bad news. The good news is that life goes on - through fistfights with fools, pet rabbits dieing, pc hard drives frying, and cars dropping transmissions on the freeway.

Gargantuan boulders (their description) will be rolling our way or in need of relocation, and we must either step aside, get rolled over, or bounce.

I am becoming an expert in bouncing.