A quote: “Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together but do so with all your heart.” ~~ Marcus Aurelius

I’ll start with a story …

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Our home was a little smaller, on the wrong side of the tracks and could use a new coat of paint. But the yard was neat, my nana’s kitchen garden busting at the seams each season and the kitchen always smelled of such food that your mouth watered before you opened the screen door on the back porch.

Nana lived with us. Aunt Velma, too. I shared a converted attic room with two sisters.

We’d do our homework on the dining table and half listen to Mom, Nana and Auntie in the kitchen in their round-robin style of gossip, meals to plan, or what the garden needed. Their voices rose and fell and became kind of music that filled the house after school.

Nana found me one afternoon as I lingered over bringing in tomatoes for canning. She tapped me on the shoulder, “What’s got you wool gathering, Shortcake?”

I rolled my eyes then I saw her eyes sparkle. “Guess you’re too old for ‘shortcake’, eh, Cynthia?”

I shook my head, “Are we poor, Nana?”
“Yes, we are.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Fair, child? Where is it written that life was to be fair? We are dealt a hand when we are born, but it is up to us to play it the best possible way.”

I gave her some side eye and she laughed. “Child, if you measure your days by what other people have, you’ll never find one day of peace. You have family that loves you, and pushes you and cheers you on and …” she chuckled, “… feeds you well, if you’ll just finish your garden chores.”

Nana is now long gone. Dad and Mom, too. All that cheering has led to life where I live in a bigger house on the right side of the tracks, but my husband and I keep a bustling kitchen garden and make sure all our children have garden chores.

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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license