I write this sitting here with sore arms and legs from a long week of gardening. When Matthew was over he used the electric hedge trimmer to shape all my topiary bushes. Something about this act or perhaps the warm weather signaled for these bushes to grow. Within days there were branches sticking out in all directions. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t tolerate that. Problem was, I was tired and I didn’t really want to take the time to shape the bushes again.

I told myself that with a few well place cuts with my hand trimmer, I could restore order in a short time. I went down one row and back up the other. I worked quickly and almost angrily to tighten up the bushes that seemed to be growing in front of my eyes. It is hard work and I just didn’t have it in me at the end of a long afternoon of gardening. What happened was truly a poor effort. The next day as I sat observing the garden my eyes were drawn to tufts of branches, pockets where I had shorn too low, and a strange unevenness which was challenging the shrub’s roundish shape. Simply put, I had given a bad haircut much in the same way I imagine tired mothers clipped their son’s hair after a long day.

I remember when I was in elementary school, every now and again a male classmate would come in completely buzzed or worse after an at-home hair cut . Uneven bangs, bald spots, and bowl cuts were the telltale signs of butchering at home. I realized this was exactly what I had done to my poor shrubs.

Lined up the way they are, they reminded me of a row of boys that would sit a pew ahead of us at church. I remember the family as very well dressed with 3 sons in descending ages by about two years. What made this family interesting was that they were always dressed up for church and the boys all looked like clones of their father. I used to feel badly for the mom as it appeared she was surrounded by males and none of them carried her genetic material. I imagined her as praying desperately for a daughter or a least a piece of a child.

One Sunday the boys filtered into the pew ahead of us and were clearly showing the signs of a very recent butchering. Bald spots, ears that seemed enormous, and in one case what appeared to be an abrasion from the clippers on the oldest boy’s neck. Now I will never be sure who did it, but I like to imagine that the tired and weary mom did this as an act of revenge for their maleness and rejection of her DNA.

On Sunday, I made myself go back over the bushes once again with my hand trimmers. This time, I took care over the shaping of each one and worked to even out my earlier mess. The results are much better. My bushes it seems have forgiven me.