Pulling Weeds

I’m white, middle class, and work in a cubicle. Put this way, some would say my life is part of the problem. I’m propelling this thing we call “the man.” I’m a perfectly well-intentioned guy, but the façade of my life could be reduced to a carbon copy of so many other lives, a window on a condo high rise gentrifying the grittiness and goodness of life.

That’s why, whenever I get the chance, I find reasons to sweat and get dirty with manual labor. I don’t do this as a character building activity but for the sake of joy. I love a day of hard work, soreness, something accomplished when dusk comes. So, this past weekend, when my grandfather asked me to help him in the garden, I gladly accepted.

It would be sloppy if I tried to capture all the complexes and issues this man has passed down the generations to me and others in my family. He singularly makes me believe in the concept of generational sin and the desperate need of Christ’s power for redemption from the things encoded in our genealogy.

Here’s a quick look at his more amazing accomplishments.He has completely shattered his wife’s sense of self through a lifetime of verbal abuse. He bosses her around in every task, menial or otherwise. Then he berates her for not having any gumption to do a damn thing on her own. He sends soft porn to me and other men as jokes, objectifying women mercilessly. (Seriously, think about your grandfather sending you soft porn.) He tries to lasso me into his misogynistic, women-bashing jokes in front of my wife. A dandy yesterday in front of her, my grandmother, and my niece: “Women are a necessary evil, hey Bry?” To add insult to injury, my niece’s mom, my sister, is going through a divorce. I wonder how that comment mixed with my niece’s utter confusion about why she’s moving, why her dad hasn’t been around for weeks, why her world is falling apart. Am I the necessary evil that made this happen? I imagine her young psyche synthesizing from that comment and her life’s circumstance. God have mercy.

If you have a sensible picture of this man, now imagine this: my brief paragraph is a snapshot from last Saturday only.

I love G. K. Chesterton’s thought about the family, that they’re the only people in life we don’t choose. I have relished the thought of a grandpa swap. It could be a nationwide, flea market affair. But I wonder who wouldn’t offer their family members in the transaction? It would be one crowded event.

Because of all this, I’m always looking for redemptive bonding moments with my grandpa, something to offset the lifelong narrative of his asshole-ness. Gardening seemed like it had potential. In side-by-side silence, with the occasional faint humming of songs that clearly shows our age-influenced preference for music, I get to share his love of this plot of ground, the arrangements of this garden he loves, that he built from scratch. It's quite extensive, his green-thumbed venture. Beds all around the house with fruit-bearing trees, annuals, perennials, creeping vines, steeple-like miniature pines, fallen palm fronds, and a few pieces of garden art. And weeds. A helluva lot of weeds. For two hours we pulled them, sweated together, and drank beer.

Sometimes it takes something simple and physical to sweep you away from the historical and internal. I could fill a very sad book with all the things I wish were different about my grandfather and myself, with wonder about how life would be different, how happy my grandmother could’ve been. But for now, we’re just pulling weeds, getting our hands dirty with life, together.