They're Orange!

Soon I will be surrounded by roses. The little buds on my balcony are morphing into old-fashioned single apricot roses with a lemon throat and a soft, spicy scent. Further along is a yellow bud. It's hard to tell if it's a sport or a separate bush.

I miss my garden, especially my roses. People talk about leaving home, but it's leaving thge gardens that I remember. The last was one I was able to come back to, to revisit and celebrate six years of growth on my old familiars. Leaving it a second time was even harder.

It's a bit like that with a child. You plant the seed, nurture it, tend its needs, admire its flowering, stress over infestations and withered branches, fertilise it fondly with what you hope will be the right ingredients, then - a small twist - your child leaves you to continue her growth in other gardens.

Hopefully, her roots are deep and strong enough to withstand bad weather without your care. With luck, the fertiliser you used will have long-term benefits. And note to all future gardeners:please tend to her with care and respect. 

When you do get to revisit your child you find yourself in awe of the growth that can occur in a foreign soil, the confident branching and graceful strength that has been acquired without much apparent tending by outside forces. You can simply delight in her shade. For shade is what she gives you, and should do. Our job is not to over-shadow our children but to plant them out in the world and refertilise ourselves from their newer and bigger adventures, content in the knowledge you have gardened well and deserve your rest.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Kahlil Gibran