Five Minute Friday: ANOTHER

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.

This week's word is ANOTHER.

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I don't know if you know this, but sometimes kids do things for no apparent reason. About ten days ago my son did one of those for-no-reason things (at least he didn't divulge a reason). When no one else was in the room, he went to the window ledge where I keep several house plants, and he ripped both of my shamrock (oxalis) plants, a purple one and a green one, out of the soil and dropped all the stems and leaves down behind the couch. He didn't touch the other plants, just the shamrocks. All that was left of the green one was soil; all that was left of the purple one was a couple of little shoots.

I cleaned up the mess, watered the soil in both pots, and basically neglected them for the next ten days (which is pretty much my usual method of caring for plants).

Ten days later, the purple shamrock looks like this:

Shamrocks are so resilient: even after what seems like total destruction, they bounce back quickly, grow like mad, and bloom enthusiastically and often. They just need another chance.

Part of me wants to rush to some quick parallel like "God is all about second chances!" or "Easter shows us that there is always another chance for new life!" or "Spring is nature's way of giving everything another chance!"

But in this difficult season, with our lives so disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown and the reality of so many people sick and dying from the virus, I find it harder to make that leap. Some people didn't get another chance to speak to their loved one before they died. It's heartbreaking.

So I won't end with comforting cliches. I'll just look at my shamrock whenever I need another glimpse of hope, another reminder to wait and trust through difficult days.