Pruning season

March winds blow and roar, commence the pruning season. Branches and limbs fall from trees. The burn pile grows in the back acre.

Meanwhile, I at last took down my living room and dining room curtains, tossed them into the washing machine. I didn’t have the steam last year for Spring cleaning. Thus, those dirty windows and curtains annoyed me throughout the fall and winter.

That’s because they weren’t happy, either. So, I tackled the project yesterday while the 70-degree sun encouraged such indoor, outdoor workouts.

As most challenges, window washing begins with mind over matter, regardless the weather. Gratification of a job well done is enough incentive to pick up the bucket, vinegar, water, rags, and paper towel.

Oh, and a screw driver for pressing down the sliding clip inside the windowpane to pull the Andersen windows forward, yet still connected to the frame.

The key is to remember the right tool.

I ironed the living room and dining room curtains and hung them before nightfall yesterday. Then called it quits to finish the last two dining room windows today after I returned home from a funeral viewing.

Friends from the west side met me in a parking lot of the church on the east side where our young families worshiped together over twenty years ago.

The father and father-in-law of mutual friends had passed away at age ninety-five, and we aimed to pay our respects. God pruned another man from what many consider the Greatest Generation. His wife left for Glory eight years ago.

My east side friends and I entered the church to support our grieving friends who also raised their children with ours in the same church.

We walked the same aisle my late husband, our two surviving daughters, and I walked to stand beside our firstborn’s remains, July 1996.

Branches of this human race who will also someday fall to the earth, we approached our grieving friends who stood before her father’s casket. We embraced. “My deepest sympathy.”

“You don’t know how much this means to me,” she whispered.

Perhaps not. Yet, I know what it meant for me when she sat at my kitchen table last summer and revived our dormant friendship.

My east side friends also offered their sympathy, then we left the chapel together.

“Thanks for standing with me,” I said.

“You’re most welcome,” they replied.

Dear Reader, mind over matter enabled me to walk into the church’s chapel again where I last beheld my firstborn’s face.

And the right tool for my mind to see clearly what matters is always, without fail, absolute trust in our good Shepherd.

For He restores my soul, leads me beside still waters for His name’s sake.

Someday, my branch will fall from the Tree of Life to the earth. Then, I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

No more windows to wash. No more funerals. Ever.

Contact Iris at irisfarmletters@gmail.com.