The Strength and Depth of Weeds

This Texas morning, I stepped out the front door to take the trash to the corner. It’s trash day and we all know you better not be late or you are stuck with your stinky refuse until your next pick-up day.

As I was walking back to the house I noticed several weeds had popped through the mulch.  We’d received rain yesterday and knowing the weeds would be easier to pull I began to choose which weeds would be easier to attack first.  As I was pulling I began to notice larger weed groups, let’s call them clumps because that’s what my Dad called them.  Weeds that had woven together to make sure their hold in the dirt was solid.  This small menial task hit me emotionally in a way that transported me back almost 50 years, allowing me to open up my file cabinet of memories and ponder – the depth and strength of weeds.

Growing up in a rural Texas town taught me more about “real” life than I learned in obtaining three college degrees. Living on the edge of town meant we battled keeping the weeds growing in our pastures from trying to take life and choke out the carpet grass in our yard.  In my family we called St. Augustine grass “carpet grass” because it was so soft and comfortable to walk on with the added advantage that you knew you would not step on a “goat head” in this grass.  Yes “goat head’ is another rural term – the sticker with a vengeance that once attached to your foot hurt worse than stepping on a rusty nail.

I spent many hours in our yard pulling weeds with my Dad.  Dad was a man of few words but when he did speak, I know now that it usually accompanied a life lesson.  I didn’t understand that at 12 years old.  Actually at times I resented the time I had to waste bending over in the Texas heat and using both hands begging a green, slick, stubborn wad of sprigs to release itself from the dirt.  We’d then throw the weeds into an old wheel barrow, which never rolled straight, and cart them to the back-end of the pasture far away from the house.

As a kid I remember thinking, “Aren’t we just sort of pulling them up from the yard and moving them to a different area where they get in line to someday to regrow until they have moved to the area where they can blow back into the yard?”  Something I would never have said out loud to Dad but the thought was there.

As we would pull weeds Dad would bring me a clump of weeds where each strand had grown together so tightly he had to grab on with both hands, wiggle the clump back and forth – back and forth.  The weeds had conspired and organized in such a way they were certain they could never be removed from continuing their damage to the healthy grass.

Dad then showed me how you had to wiggle then pull, wiggle then pull, and repeat for several intervals before the roots unwillingly gave up their deep hold, fully absorbed by the moist dirt underneath.  He didn’t always succeed.  Some weeds had an intense awareness they were trying to be “uprooted” and their attachment extended so deep that our strength was unable to move them.  I’d look at my Dad and ask, “So what now?”  That’s where the life lesson came in except at 12 I was oblivious.  This morning fifty years later, what he shared jumped from my emotional file cabinet and hit me hard.

What Dad shared was this:   “Raylene (my middle name he always called me) you see weeds are like people.  Weeds are alive and they take root.  Just like people take root in where they live, what they believe, how they treat each other.  Weeds are necessary because they grow fast, build up soil so when we plant healthy grass the soil is prepared.  Some weeds are weak and you can yank those out with two fingers.  Those are the weeds that don’t know where they want to be and don’t have a strong belief system of who they are.  Those weeds won’t help build up our soil.  You never want to be one of those weeds.  Anybody can tug them out and toss them away.”

“Now look at this clump here,” and he proceeded to show me the larger mass of weeds.  When I viewed them from a distance they looked like unattractive grass but once I kneeled down close I could get a good look at their orchestrated plan.  They were deep down in the soil with a mission.  “Raylene this is the weed you want to be.  Just try to pull one up.”  I tugged, wiggled, pulled with both hands.  I had to stop because I was truly sweating.  When I looked at his face he was laughing his quiet chuckle.  He was enjoying watching me struggle and being a strong-willed child I now understand why the snicker.

“Raylene this is the weed you want to be.  Plant yourself with a purpose.  Gather around others who believe like you believe.  Help prepare the soil so when other grass is ready to be planted you have left them a healthy place to grow.  And see this long sprig of weed right here?”  He pointed to the toughest, tallest, weed in the group.  “That is the weed you want to be.  This weed speaks for the other weeds.  It’s a little intimidating this weed.  When you grab the clump of weeds to pull it you surround this weed with all the smaller weeds.  It’s like your hiding it so you can’t see how strong it is.  But it’s strong and it’s looking right at you.  This weed will be the last one to let go.  This weed will not let go of its grasp in the soil until it knows it’s the right thing to do.  If you become this weed, then as your father I’ve done my job.”

I will share that at this moment I honestly questioned my Dad’s sanity.  It was hot, it was summer, I didn’t want to be pulling weeds nor having a conversation about them, but for this strong-willed daughter just finishing what he told me to do was my ticket back into the house with the one refrigerated air conditioner.

This morning 48 years later, as I kneeled in my weeds every emotion possible came flooding to the surface. Dad was successful in raising that strong-willed daughter to be a strong-willed wife, mother, friend, educator and Christian.  Throughout the many detours and road blocks in life I have never lost my focus of who I am and what I believe.  My Dad was a man of few words – the smartest man I’ve ever known.  He was a simple man and a spiritual man.  I don’t call him religious because I’ve realized he never placed his faith in men of the pulpit.  He would call that “religion.”  His faith was placed in his Heavenly Father and he didn’t need the doors of a church building to remind him that God did exist.

Dad went to Heaven ten years ago after a battle with colon cancer.  Those last few months were difficult on all of us but him!  Not one complaint about his disease or pain.  Not one time did he ask, “Why me?”  Just Dad hanging on with a tight grasp in the soil until God knew it was time for him to be at peace and no longer needed to be the tough weed standing tall.  He did his work as a father.  He grew a daughter, while most of the time a difficult daughter, she “gets” what it means to be the lead weed.

All my life it’s been my passion to fight for the underdog – to never be afraid to speak for those in need – even at the expense of knowing it might not be popular – at the expense of knowing it could cost me career advancement – I used to consider this a flaw.  Many times I’ve left meetings hitting myself in the forehead telling myself to “STOP.”  Just stop caring – stop fighting.  Stop bringing to the surface topics no one wants to hear or face as truth.  But I wasn’t raised to be the weed that was easy to pull from the soil.  The ones Dad described as weak.

As I sit on my back porch in my Dad’s wooden rocker, the one he sat in outside for thousands of hours just talking to his brothers or friends -or not talking and just soaking up the peace of the silence, I have realized being the “lead weed” is who I am.  And that’s ok.  The preparation began many years ago and knowing that my Heavenly Father has planted in me a deep-rooted strong moral and ethical compass which was passed down through the quiet wisdom of my Earthly father, adds a smile to my tears.

As I sit, write, and smile, rain has begun to fall.  I see this as God’s blessing of watering the weeds.  They must grow because Dad said weeds are necessary as they grow fast, build up soil, so when we plant healthy grass the soil is prepared.  God prepares his soil and he’s prepared me to hold on until my work is done.