Brooms and other dreams

Someone from Cannon Valley Friends Meeting came over to help my family with some housework a couple weeks ago, and she brought her own broom, mentioning that she had a hard time with ours, which was stiff and missing half of its bristles. The next time Ian went shopping, he returned with two new soft-bristled brooms, and I called my mother to tell her the good news. (She had also been dismayed by our broom for quite some time.)

Talking about my brooms reminded my mother of a dear aunt who farmed all her life in the northwestern part of the state. For a wedding gift, my great-aunt gave her daughter-in-law a broom. I thought to myself that this did not sound like a fun wedding present at all, but Mom went on to say that that when her aunt got married, she didn’t have a broom for some time. It weighed on her, and she must have given her daughter-in-law a broom as a way to try to protect her and give her a better life.

Her warm-hearted daughter-in-law recognized the gift for what it was and shared the story with great affection at my great aunt’s funeral.

Once again, I am reminded that I am living out the dreams of relatives that I barely knew, or that I never knew. The freedom from want that I have always known is a gift that they longed to give their children, their grandchildren, and all the babies that they never lived long enough to meet. They were so successful in their efforts that I am often ignorant about the value of what I have been given and about the lives of those who wanted more for me than what they had.

Still, those relatives map the landscape of my life, pointing me in the direction of what they believed was important and right. They are always with me, and I have noticed them especially when I am pregnant. Sometimes I notice them with every breath, as if they were the scent of the summer air.

As my pregnancy enters its very last stages, I am thinking about my dreams for my children and grandchildren, and the babies I will never meet. I am deeply worried about the state of the soil and the climate, and I fear that they may know want that I have never known, brought on by a damaged environment.

Of course I dream of ease for the babies that are yet to come, but I also dream of a durable relationship with the land, perhaps more like the relationship that my relatives once had. I dream that the next generations will be able to see the face of God in the natural things around them, in a way that much of our generation apparently cannot. I dream that they can structure their lives to honor what is holy. I wish for them a love so deep that not even death can hinder it.




(P.S. – I’m 37 weeks pregnant today! No more worries about an early baby, but am still supposed to be taking it very easy. I am so happy and relieved.)