Flowers are like grandkids

Ever notice how flowers are like grandkids? They grow up overnight.

Or is it the other way around? Grandkids are like flowers. 

Hmmm. Maybe it’s a little of both – and I was reminded of each last weekend as I left my new home and fledgling flowers in mid-Missouri to head back to Illinois for my oldest grandson’s high school graduation. 

When I returned home from my three-day journey, I found hibiscus plants taller by nearly a foot, my “salad bowl” with a variety of lettuces sprouting new growth, the geranium with new buds, and one petunia spreading outward while another had grown so tall that it was covering the “e” in the “Welcome” oar hanging on the siding above it.

I smiled at these plants, brought together into my clan – some from a family greenhouse up on Highway C, others from the local grocery store’s outdoor shelves and one from back in Illinois. It had been fun watching their growth day to day from the time I replanted them and gave them each their own special spots and as I watered and nurtured them each evening, straightening one here, picking off a dead leaf or bloom there.  As I returned home that Monday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, I smiled at how they’d grown when I was gone. 

It’s kind of like that with grandkids. 

Seems like only yesterday, I took a phone call in the courtesy counter of the grocery store where I then worked – and my life was changed forever. Nearly two months before his due date, my grandson was on his way – and I was on a mad dash to the hospital to be there for his arrival. As we all looked at that perfect little guy that day, all of him weighing less than five pounds, it was hard to believe he’d someday tower over not only Mom, Grandma and Great-grandma, but also Dad, Grandpa and Great-grandpa.

It was hard to imagine the day he’d walk across the stage of a high school auditorium to accept his diploma. That, I must have thought back then, won’t happen for at least a zillion years. 

I should have known better. I’d been through it before – with his mom. One day, she was an infant in arms, the next she was an adult. 

It was sort of like those flowers – turn away for a day or three, look back and they’ve matured overnight. 

The best thing about it all, though – flowers, kids or grandkids – is the joy they give as you watch them bloom and the pride you feel when you see them all grown up. 

Yet, as much as I want to imagine those colorful blooms are smiling back and saying "Thanks," there’s just nothing quite like the smile in a young man’s big brown eyes and the ear-to-ear pearly white grin that says, loud and clear, “Grandma, I did it!”

You sure did, buddy. I love you – congratulations!

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012  

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