Gardens of Kindness

I am at a ‘Graduation Ceremony’ or a ‘Moving Up Ceremony’ or a ‘Pre-K Presentation,’ whatever you call it.

Z is going to Kindergarten.

I always want to spell it with a D. A garden where kindness grows and friendship blooms.

We have heard the poem over and over in our house. Z taught it to A which means we hear it double.

Kindergarten Here we Come!

We Know We’ll Have Lots of Fun!

Lots of Things to Make and Do!

Counting, Reading, Writing Too!

The Pre-K Children are dressed up and walk in with a mixture of pride, confidence, and shyness. Friendship has bloomed here in the world of Pre-K.

The chairs are hard and metal and I’m struggling to get a good view of Z, but I’d rather be here than anywhere else.

A month ago I was recovering from a health issue. I was hooked up to an IV waiting for Health to visit again.

Now I am healing. I want to preserve health. Wrap it up gently and hold on to it tightly the way one holds a toddlers hand crossing the road. Tightly. Firmly. Not let go.

To do everyday day tasks is a blessing. To go to a grocery store, pick up a child from school, work on a computer with your brain slowly sharpening again, is a blessing. What used to be mundane and trivial is now done with a sense of accomplishment.

To not have doctor appointments scheduled with high frequency, tainting white squares of the calendar is a blessing.

For so many things in life we work at to get. Wealth. Education. Careers. We put in long hours with the hope our efforts will pay off.

But not so with health. We can exercise and take care of ourselves, yes, but health can go away stealthily and silently, without warning. It can flee you when you most need it leaving you struggling and wallowy. Get Well Soon is a phrase you learn to dread hearing, a phrase said to you with a smile, a phrase that taunts you. Sometimes you Don’t Get Well Soon. Every fiber of you wants to heal, but the body has a way of betraying you sometimes.

So when you finally get your health back, when it finally returns slowly and surely, like a sun ray falling in your lap, you want to cherish it and not let it go.

You’d rather keep those calendar squares white and empty, free and unblemished when you can. You’d rather hold on to health and the toddler with a tightly gripping hand, cross the road, and attend a kinder- garden ceremony. A place where kindness blooms. A place with new beginnings. You. The toddler. The preschooler. And health with a capital H.

“Take benefit of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness,  your wealth before your poverty, your free-time before your preoccupation, and your life before your death,” ~ Prophet Muhammad (Narrated by Ibn Abbas and reported by Al Hakim)