~A successful garden, full of abundance includes diversity of plants, where no weeds thrive~ Lee Reynolds
Thanks for coming to visit my blog today. While I want to chat about harvesting garlic, sharing my strawberry shortcake recipe and growing a productive raspberry patch, there are weeds of racism growing all over the world and I can stand by and be silent no longer; it’s time for me to grab my hoe and start weeding….and sharing my thoughts. What better place than here at Hope’s Homestead. So welcome, grab a glass of ice tea and pull up a chair and stay awhile.
While our kids have been out of school, in isolation, during this COVID-19 global pandemic, we’ve been reading books as a family. After our children’s evening bath and donning of jammies, we settle into our favourite chair in the living room, pull up our softest quilt and take turns reading. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Except the books we’re reading, fill our living room with a heavy sadness, and with each book, a bit of our children’s innocence fades.
We’re reading stories from the Second World War, shining a light on the atrocities of that time, when six million Jewish people were exterminated. Books like, “Number the Stars,” by Lois Lowry, and “Anne Frank; The Diary of a Young Girl,” take us back to a darker time in history.
Currently, we are glued to the book, “Refugee,” by Alan Gratz. It tells a story of three different children, living in three separate eras, who are all trying to escape war. We haven’t finished it yet but the back cover implies that although “Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud,” are separated by continents and decades, surprising connections will tie their stories together in the end.
You may be wondering why I’m exposing our children to such books, when there are kinder, gentler genres to read. What I hope my children will pick up after reading these books, is how fortunate they are to live in Canada, where there is excellent health care and education opportunities. I want them to be grateful for all they have been given. I also want them to learn to chant, something that started after Nazi Germany, systemically murdered two thirds of Europe’s Jewish people, during the Second World War. I want “never again,” to be on my children’s lips and in their hearts.
Never Again!
Yet here we are again, in the shadows of this COVID-19 pandemic, the crack against people of colour and racial minorities has split open, triggered by the unjust killing of a black man, George Floyd, who was held down by the neck, under the knee of a white police officer for eight minutes, until he died. In the wake of that murder, another black man, Rayshard Brooks, was shot in the back and killed, while running away from another white police officer.
These deaths come after centuries of systemic violence against racially discriminated black people. In the current climate, where the world has stopped spinning, due to this global pandemic, our eyes are fully opened and if we weren’t aware of what was occurring before, we are now heightened to it. There is no going back.
The crack has been opened.
Never again has to be our chant.
And it’s not just illuminating the plight of black people. Here in Canada, it’s our Indigenous peoples who are the minority and have faced discrimination, ever since Europeans started settling on their land three hundred years ago.
As a white person, I can no longer stand by and do nothing. If we don’t tug on the weeds of hatred and eradicate them, what occurred during the Second World War to the Jewish people, will happen again to the black people, to our First Nations people, or to any racial minority.
What action can I take? On the weekend, I finally decided that I would start writing and a story unfolded. Here is that fictional story inspired by the light my Grandma brought to the world…and to me:
My maternal grandmother, Hulda, loved to pull weeds. She had a large vegetable garden behind her white house, on Mt. Lehman Road, in Abbotsford. While visiting her one summer day, with a twinkle in her eye she asked, “Debbie, do you want to come and see the butterflies?” Excited for an adventure, I stopped cutting families, from the Sears Catalogue, and grabbed her outstretched hand. Once down the back stairs, she picked up a rusty old garden hoe, which had been leaning against the house and as we walked swinging our arms, she pointed out interesting things on our path;
the brilliant, iridescent wings of a dragonfly, the peaceful dance of a swallow tail butterfly and the bright, chirping of a cricket, in the tall meadow grass, bordering the garden.
She looked down at me and said, “each creature has its own beauty and purpose on the earth.”
Once at the garden, she pulled a little teaspoon from her magic apron pocket and directed me to the row of carrots, where she invited me to dig and enjoy. While I sat cross legged, munching on a freshly dug carrot, she stood surveying the garden with a gentle smile on her lips. Perhaps she was taking a moment to appreciate the garden’s abundance, or maybe she was deciding where to start weeding.
Finally, she started rhythmically hoeing between rows in the garden; loosening the soil and exposing the roots of weeds. As she moved along the row and her wake of weeds grew bigger, her smile got softer and she started to hum. The haunting strains of “Amazing Grace,” rode on the breeze and was carried out beyond the garden, on the wings of butterflies.
I was crunching a crisp bean pod, when she asked if I was ready to go in for tea. Always hungry, I jumped up and followed her. She had her arms full of weeds with dirt still clinging to them. Before we went in the house, she dropped the weeds onto a large compost pile at the edge of the garden. “Why are you throwing the weeds in that pile and not in the garbage?” I asked. She smiled at me and said, “Everything has a purpose Debbie, and weeds turn into great soil, which will make my garden even better next year.”
Afternoon tea time was my favourite time of day at Grandma’s. Whoever was visiting would congregate around Grandma’s large kitchen table. The adults would drink coffee or tea and grandma would pour some fizzy orange pop for me. She would lay out cheese, butter, bread and always a big plate of baked goods. There was a place for everyone at Grandma’s table. She would then settle in her rocking chair and as it creaked back and forth, our family would drift into a gentle conversation, filling the kitchen with a peaceful comfort.
It’s a funny thing about writing, but often as the words pour out of me, answers to my questions appear. (I think Grandma visited me in my dreams on the weekend) I now know what I can do in light of all the racial unrest in the world right now.
I can tend my garden. I can dig up my own weeds. I can provide a place for everyone at my table and teach my children to appreciate the purpose and beauty in all things .
Even the weeds.
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Before I say goodbye, I thought I would include a great video that I watched on June 21st, which was National Indigenous Day. As a white person, I can hold a light for the voices of Black people, Indigenous people and other racial minorities. It’s not a lot, but if we all start with ourselves, providing a peaceful place for them to be heard, a listening heart, to let their words find a home, then that is a start. Come join me and listen to, “One World, (we are one)” produced by IllumiNative and Mag 7:
This blog post is dedicated to my grandmother, Hulda Adeline, Snickars/Herrling ~ Born September 24, 1892 in Vaasa, Finland~
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Hope