Hardship

What, you were expecting a funny title like: "Roses are Red, My Violets Aren't Blu-ming?" Surely that's got to be somewhere on the blogosphere somewhere....

Rains a comin', they say, but I haven't seen it yet. When it comes, it's supposed to come gangbusters.

I'm backdating a bit, because I'd meant to write about this, but hadn't had time during the holidays.

The second Saturday in December I was opening the windows to let some sun in, inching by our Christmas tree when I saw a mess outside the window. My Mom once told me an ice storm had hit Eastern Nebraska before the leaves had time to fall; the ice collected on the full trees and pulled entire hundreds of pounds branches to the ground, closing streets, downing power lines...

This wasn't that, but in some ways it was as hard to take.

As I looked out the front window I could see that half my lion's tail, 4 feet high and 6 feet across, had been ripped in half, the bed of irises all trampled, ditto the daylillies and fennel. The lantana had been ripped to the side and newspapers, the sex ones distributed for free around the city, lay on the ground making a bed.

My first thought was, "Oh my god, I don't want Ryan to see this."

And I didn't let him for a bit. I went out and assessed the damage.

It was hard to tell exactly what happened, but it looked like a homeless person who was either extremely drunk or just out of their mind, had repeatedly rammed a shopping cart or something like it into the butterfly bush, making some sort of hole. They ripped out 7 fennel plants and strewn them everywhere, and any other plant he or she could get hold of.

The last sign of them, beside the bed of papers and cardboard, was a black trail of wheel marks headed down the street and my daylillies all over the road, flattened by countless cars who'd passed over them in the night and early morning.

Ryan made it out of the house and started asking questions. "What's going on, Dad?" I had him go inside, get into his work clothes and get our gloves. I brought the yard trimmings can and tools over to the site.

It was hard to separate. Here nature hadn't taken its toll, but a human had purposely done this to my yard. All our hard work just ripped out by its roots and crushed. It felt as if someone had punched us in the gut and laughed.

But they hadn't. This wasn't a malicious act by sullen teens out to prove they aren't piano keys, this was an act by someone who didn't know better. Someone whose life was so much worse than ours. Who obviously didn't have anyone to care for them or love them. A man or woman who didn't even have a place to sleep and saw the world as hostile and hateful.

Ryan, Abby, and I had just volunteered (for the first time) at a homeless shelter the weekend before and we'd seen how down on their luck many of these folks are. Somehow that act helped me see through this one.

When Ryan came out he was... well, devastated. "How could someone do this?" He was also angry. He wanted to call the police and tell them to find this awful person who crushed all our work.

I explained to him what I thought happened, and tried to explain we should feel sorry for this person, as hard as it is, because we had this wonderful yard that would grow back, and a house and pillows to lay our heads on, and we had each other. This person probably didn't even have anyone to love them, to tell them goodnight when they go to bed every night.

It worked for a bit. He cleaned up near the daylillies, then suggested calling the police again. Got himself together then ran to the front porch. I didn't know for a few moments where he'd gone, but I sensed that he wasn't doing okay with it.

I set my rake on a bush and went up to the porch, where he was sitting, crying.

I put my arm around him and explained again. I told him I didn't quite understand, either. I didn't explain alcohol, drugs, or mental imbalance, but I don't think I needed to. I don't think it helped me understand. The heart of the matter was that this person didn't know what he or she was doing and we, thank god, have each other - and that is worth more than anything we own.

He was at least able to get up and begin to work again, still not totally grasping the point, which is understandable. I mean, he's in 2nd grade, Pokemon is in his grasp, but we're struggling with explanations of racism, segregation, and the Civil War.

We put up a little mock fence, just to tell the person, should they come back, (as I explained to Ryan and Abby), "This isn't a place to sleep. Please go find a shelter like the one we were just in."

I convinced Ryan we didn't need to arm the fence.

Like I said, the points are slow going with him sometimes.