Day 2

I am still mystified by the miracle that is life.

I am the green-thumb of my family but that isn't saying much.

My mother is the grim reaper to all things plant

and I feel bad sometimes as she tends the garden

while I tend my social life.

She deserves a sprout in honor of her labor but plants seem to smell the sweat from her hard day's work and cower under the soil until they are sure that she is no longer looking.

My grandfather grew sunflowers.

He sang "Home, Home On The Range" and made apple sauce with his own apples

from the tree that he planted with his own calloused hands.

His whole life he spent making life

as a testament to the one he drank away sometimes

and my mother was another one of the seeds that he planted

My grandfather died of a heart attack, suddenly, in his fifties.

There was no warning

no history of heart disease

or signs of wilting

No evident need of watering

or fertilizing

I feel bad for my mother, because she can't make plants grow,

but then again I don't imagine flowers are sad for the sake of not being able to keep their own garden.