How To Bend The Knee

"Tulips," she inquired over phone, "do you want me to plant tulips under your tree?" My daughter, who had extra bulbs, came over after work one recent evening to grace our circle of dirt under Dogwood tree with assorted bulbs. The fruits of her labor won't be visible until next year, the beautiful flowers that talk happy to us after gray, bleak, shivery winter. Truthfully, I wanted to be the one digging the June dirt, kneeling in soft green grass, preparing soil with anticipation, hope of exploding colors pushing through Portland's damp spring. A heavy sigh expelled into warm evening air. Surveying her efforts, her long flowing sweater touching grass, blond head bent in concentration, golden earrings I secretly coveted catching light, my mind traveled backwards. To another day, a time when I planted my mother's own bulbs under same Dogwood tree eons ago. Daughter was but a toddler. Memories swept across brain, pleasure recalled at simply watching those glorious red tulips rise every spring. They were a part of my mother. A treasure. A comfortable shawl draped across shoulders bearing weight of loss. Through ensuing years, after  neighbor's dogs trampled across tulip bed in play, maybe a few frigid winters, the flowers died. I re-planted the bed with impatiens, missing my mother's tulips sorely, like a child's favorite soft blanket, the kind with shiny satin edges. As the scene unfolded before my eyes, daughter bent low, garden tool in hand, a song by David Crowder Band flitted across my mind, a butterfly kiss. "I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy," closing my eyes, hurting body saying yes to next verse, "When all of a sudden, I am unaware of the afflictions eclipsed by glory." Oh, I managed. A bent knee. A daughter who knits past and present together, unknowingly, generously, crafting bed of glory on bended knees. William Wadsorth said it well: "Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar." In gratitude I bend the knee, whispering thanks, as I understand once again the full measure of a father's love. Afflictions eclipsed by glory. "So heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss," the band croons into listening ear.