Sandboxes, brides and boys

In last week’s column I wrote about our sandbox and this Magnolia tree that has been a friend to my children for over a decade, and now my grandchildren have discovered it. Together they watched the wedding. I wanted to share it with you.

My column week of the wedding...

There have been several amazing things that have occurred in my garden this summer. We have had some down right strange things like the mysterious foam that appears over night. And wondrous things, like the swarm of dragonflies that visited us one Sunday morning and filled the air until nightfall. Yet, nothing has compared to what I saw out my window yesterday, and what is yet to come.

If you peek out of any of the upstairs bedroom windows, you have a beautiful view of our yard and my flower garden. Dividing the yard between where I want flowers to grow and children to play, is an island of old trees, bushes, and indestructible daylilies.

One particular tree is an old Magnolia that has grown at a slant. All of its branches bend to the side like a ballerina swaying to the north. When my children were small we put in a huge sandbox (that holds a full ton of sand) made of railroad ties, under the shelter of its outstretched limbs. It has always been the center attraction in our yard.

For years my children have delighted in playing in that sandbox; especially when we bring in new sand. They would stay busy for hours on end. Which, truth be told, is why this busy mother loved the sandbox—it was the best babysitter a mother could ask for. It was always available, and the children were never out of my sight.

That sand box beckons children of all ages, girls and boys. Early this summer, I caught two 13-year-old boys digging and forming the sand with precision and purpose…sheer childhood fun. Today I witnessed two 12-year-old little girls digging and sculpting a pickup trunk in the fine, fresh new sand. But this year, something has been quite different.

You may be thinking that this is the oddity I saw out the windows. Children, who, in our world today seem to be thrust into a false adulthood, instead actually playing like children.
No, that’s not odd around these neck-of-the-woods. We get a lot of that, and I am thankful. I love to see children play and pretend.

But that wasn’t it. What I found so amazing was that this year, it has been filled with my own grandchildren. A new generation has discovered the same sandbox that my children spent so many summers playing in.

Other than the perennial big kids rediscovering their first love, I hadn’t realized how empty it had become. One by one each of its inhabitants, that once kept it fully populated, have grown up and stopped visiting it.

Looking out that bedroom window, and seeing another generation busily building and creating a new world of castles armed with guards, and filled with highways was quite a stunning view. They bare the resemblance of children I once saw, sitting in the very same place.

Once again, I am reminded that time not only pushes us on when we want it to stand still, but it also slips by. No matter how hard we want to stop it, or are too busy to notice it slipping through our fingers; it is ever changing and living.

This week our sandbox will undergo yet another transformation. The little girl that once swung from the branches above, and built tunnels with her brothers below, will walk past it without giving it a glance, or thought. No amount of new sand will entice her to come and play.

She will walk past, arm-in-arm with her father, seeing only the sparkle of her groom’s eye. Sand and trees all wearing their wedding attire, will say good-bye to the little girl they once knew, and we will marvel at God’s plan unfolding before our eyes.