A friend living with cancer wrote a tender piece about the hard places. She describes holding both aspects at once: gratitude for her children and husband, and sitting with the heaviness of her hijacked plans. 

 

She did not factor in cancer, when she set sail on marriage and motherhood. Rather it sneaked up behind her stealthily, tying rocks to her heels with slender tendrils until the sheer weight slowed her gait to a crawl. It took a long time to ferret out why she was sick, and exhausted. While the arrival of a diagnosis brought clarity to an array of symptoms, it did not bring a cure. 

 

There are no exemptions from hard places. The variety in details keeps us guessing, but there is no carpool lane that whizzes past Hard altogether. Health issues, relationship fails, death, financial stress are some of the names that house what is hard.  But maybe it matters little what the subject matter consists of. Hard is just hard. 

 

There is a humble plant called milkweed, that is at once crusty and gray. The pod wins no medals for beauty, or scent. It can spread by means of the invisible network of rhizome roots traveling underground. To some people it is nothing but a weed as its name suggests. But to a monarch butterfly, it is the sweetest food imaginable. It even provides protection, because when a caterpillar eats its sap, it becomes poisonous to predators. 

 

When September comes something happens that changes everything. The pod cracks open. Inside are a host of seeds carried on angels' wings. Lighter than the wind, quieter than a whisper. Each seed floats on the air carrying a tiny possibility for new growth. 

 

Maybe the hard parts of our lives are like that too.