Kids Do Say "Thank You"

It must have been that we were driving in the wee hours of the morning. It was actually last year Easter sunday and my daughter (21) and I were driving for about an hour to go to the sunrise service at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, N.H. We had to leave home before 5 am. So, barely awake, and in the dark, some things might have been shared that wouldn’t have been shared in the stark glare of the mid-day sun.

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And it was then that she thanked me for teaching her to appreciate flowers and the unfolding of spring. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Does that sound sappy? OK, perhaps it is.

I am a bit of a nut about spring’s unfolding. A self-proclaimed nature freak, I watch for the trees to begin their glow in late February and early March when the life inside them begins to flow and prepare for the the upcoming burst of color. I survey the garden looking for the first tips of the hardy crocus bulbs to burst above the snow, and I can actually tell you the day in May that most of the buds on most of the trees burst. (It’s always between May 5 and May 8.)

Nature, and flowers and trees… that is a language that I speak. It is in my soul. And when my daughter was in her teen stage of pushing me away she would sometimes roll her eyes at me when I appreciated aloud the magic around us.

Little did I know that she not only heard it, she got it.

And now she thanked me for sharing that love with her. It doesn’t get better than that.