Always enough

Two little men-to-be, running in the sun. One of them is fast and agile, the other one can’t seem to follow his own legs.

A third little guy sits on the stone pavement, eating some mud and giggling delightful baby sounds to his brothers.

I sit on the doorstep, enjoying this first day of warm, barefoot weather sunshine.?

I gaze up at the tree that almost succeeds in dwarfing this huge house we may live in for now. All at once my head snaps up, and I run to the tree. Pulling one of the lower branches down, my fear is confirmed.?

After months of waiting for it to bloom all pink and fluffy like a Queen in the garden, I discover I’ve missed it. Did it happen while we were gone for the weekend, two weeks ago? One week ago? We were only gone for a weekend, twice. Surely it can’t be over that fast??

This is the second year I waited in vain. Last year, too, I anticipated the day the Queen would put on her pink fairy dress and dance tall, slow and elegantly over the garden. I thought I ?saw the pink blossoms peek out from under the buds and then, just a day or so before they could unfurl, a storm passed this way. The angry, wildly boisterous wind blew it all away.

The boys don’t mind. Wearing only their pajama bottoms, they are having a sword fight with branches they found under the tree. Bare-chested, they are both Zorro today. To my embarrassment, they inform the neighbor lady of this fact rather loudly.

My little Zorro’s don’t need the pink blossoms. If the tree gives them some branches, that is more then enough.

Life isn’t always like I want it to be. Sometimes, the blossoms don’t come. Or they leave too quickly. Sometimes I get a stick when I wanted a pink fluffy tree, snowing pink all over the garden. And sometimes my husband and his sister drily inform me that this tree has never blossomed all pink. And they should know, because they have lived here since forever. It will, however, have very pretty leaves, they tell me.

I’m not sure what to do with those leaves, with the branch I am given. But today, my boys bring me a branch and tell me I can now be Zorro, too.

Branch. Blossoms. Green leaves. Brown leaves.

Even when it doesn’t feel like it and when I am not yet sure where the path leads me, in the end, it is always enough. More then enough.