Some days you need a gardenia bloom

August is a long month.

Even though other months in our calendar year have thirty one days, August seems to drag.

Maybe its slug pace is tied to the sweltering heat and humidity that always accompany August.

August also signals that students will be returning to their classrooms.

Also in August, nervous politicians start their incessant advertising in pursuit of being elected in November.

Before spending lots of pennies on creating these ads, politicians should understand how frequently the mute button is pushed when an ad appears on our television screen.

But, August captures me for another reason.

On August 31, 1992, our mother passed away.

Ten years later on September 1, 2002, our father said goodbye.

Our father came within an hour of leaving this world on August 31.

Yet, when my sister, our Uncle Ralph, and I met with the director of the funeral home, we learned that since he passed on September 1, he was entitled to receive his social security check.

We chuckled when we learned this news. It was another example of how our father’s generation squeezed pennies.

Lots has happened since Louise and Bill left this world. They now have four great grandchildren. I know they would have cherished getting to know each of them.

When our parents were growing up, they endured multiple hardships. I think those hardships were at the heart of the perseverance that drove how they chose to live their lives.

God, family, sacrifice, and love were at the core of their daily living.

Clearly, I didn’t understand it at the time, but they were working to instill those traits into my sister and me too.

While I’m sure my parents would marvel at the advances in technology, I also think they would be worried at the erosion we currently see related to God, family, sacrifice, and love.

I worry about this mess we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

And despite this mess, I do have hope.

Our mother and father both had green thumbs.

They were proficient with flowers, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and scuppernongs.

In our Richmond yard, we have three gardenia shrubs. Two of those shrubs came from gardenia shrub cuttings in our yard in Burlington, North Carolina where my sister and I grew up.

Our father loved the the fragrant bloom of a gardenia.

Depending upon the harshness of our Richmond winter, we usually see our gardenias start to bloom in late June or early July.

Back on August 10, I was walking around our yard, and I noted that the gardenia shrubs with North Carolina roots had singular blooms.

I was surprised to see these pretty blooms. I’m not a horticulturist, so I have no explanation for the two stragglers.

But, I thought a bit further, and I said to myself—its August, maybe this is the work of Louise and Bill.

Maybe, it is their way of saying hello.

Maybe, they are letting me know that they are still watching over their knucklehead son.

Maybe, they are saying to me, you just turned seventy. You don’t have much time left, this world is a mess, you better wake up, and get busy.

Makes me wonder, does the world weigh on you, like it weighs on me?

I’m pretty sure I know your answer.

As I write this, a powerful hurricane will land on the Gulf coast of Florida, another senseless mass shooting has occurred in Jacksonville, Florida, our politicians are out of touch with reality, and a weariness hovers over America as we wonder—when are we going to wake up?

Some days, I need an unexpected gardenia bloom to give me hope, and to remind me of these words from Romans 5 verse three: “We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”

Don’t let your hope die.