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| {Leland Street Peonies} |
When we moved to the farmhouse from our beloved home on Leland, I felt such great loss. Up until our closing date, the four walls of that house held every one of our memories as a family of four. It knew the stories of tearing down plaster, dry wall dust as thick as snow, living without a bathroom door for months, throngs of friends helping to hang dry wall and of me standing on a ladder to paint trim white when I was eight months pregnant with Henry. It was the threshold we crossed with both newborn boys in baby carriers, it heard late night cries and was where I rocked my infant boys in the middle of the night back to sleep. It was where we became a family. Of everything that I loved about that home and everything that was familiar, one of my very favorite things was welcoming summer. Opening windows and spending more time outside, chalking up the driveway and jumping through the sprinkler in the back yard next to the giant pine. Every May as the cooler spring temperatures eventually yeilded themselves to the longer, warmer days of summer the bushes that lined our driveway would start to form hundreds of round, pink buds. Oh I loved those peonies bushes. They blossomed faithfully at the end of May every spring, a staunch welcome to summer and beautiful days ahead. I would clip as many as my fists could hold at a time and shake the ants out before bringing them inside and plunking them in vases that I'd place all around our house. The kitchen sink, the bathroom window, the dining room table, the mantle; every room boasted of the summer to come and bore those blush pink blossoms for as many days as I could hang on to them. We have moved three times now since the days of the Leland Street peonies and it finally feels like we are at home again. In the alley just behind our garage and garden there is a row of peonies. A beautiful row that boasts not only full vibrant fuchsia blossoms but also one that boasts of God's goodness and faithfulness to us. We have been here and there and what feels to me like a little bit of everywhere, but God has brought us home.
