JOY ALONG THE WAY: 'TIS THE SEASON TO OBSERVE THE PUSH FOR LIFE

Out the back door, across the porch, down the steps and about 15 feet out the back walk is an upheaval, a sort of benign volcano of low but ever increasing height and crumbling texture. In the presence of everything around it which resembles a stab of neatness it looks out of place. Neighbors and I traversing around it wonder why I don't fix this "wart on the nose of the walkway."

But there is something peaceful to think about when I contemplate it. It is a monument to the indestructible force for life. You see, it is a root of the towering saw-toothed oak that is pushing the hard concrete out of its way. The push, by year, is infinitesimal but sure. The source of the push is life. The concrete is dead. The concrete does not procreate. The oak tree, in its yearly cycle of life, produces leaves, catkins and finally acorns, the seeds. The squirrels bury these, thinking they are storing their pantries, but about half of them sprout to form new oak trees. Life, wonderful life goes on, just as the Creator of oak trees designed it to do.

When the first upheaval reached foot-stumbling height, my neighbor Bill extracted it, mixed some concrete and replaced the broken section.

The neighbors gathered around and when the concrete had reached a suitable stage we put handprints, footprints, names, and initials in the gray, hardening mixture. There was some humor included. In the "o" in the middle of Bob's name, someone made a face out of it, complete with funny standup hair and big ears. I scratched a ring on a finger of my handprint.

In due time the inscriptions will be erased by hail, sleet and footsteps. Already they show wear. The concrete, having no life cannot renew itself, but the oak, with its live roots can, pushing anything out of its way that would hinder its growth.

This inscripted section of the walkway has been pushed up so that it is slanted at about a 10 degree angle. One could imagine it to be a tombstone, complete with reminders of who were buried there. Any spring now I expect to see a little oak sprout or dandelions, violets, clematis vine escaping from around the edges in their scramble for life.

So the "tombstone" remains and every time I look at it or walk around it, I'm reminded of living things going on.

Consider the tobacco seed pod. It is almost comical. One pod may contain as many as 40,000 seeds. If only one seed fell to the ground and rooted, there would be 40,000 more seeds to keep things going, albeit not for the good of other living things.

The local birds are nesting. Hatched eggs will keep the species going. Honeybees are gathering nectar to keep the hive going in which the Queen bee lives whose sole purpose is to lay eggs. She may lay 5,000 a day. How about that!

Life, wonderful on-going life!

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.