I have the day completely to myself. You may think that is an odd thing to say for a retired fella. You might ask, “Don’t you have every day to yourself to do exactly what you want, as much as you want, for as long as you want?”

Excuse me while I laugh uncontrollably.

I’m not complaining. It’s just that my life is full, and in a good way. But today, I’m on my own. No grandchild to pick up from school. No meeting tonight. No place I have to be.

I’m up early. Coffee in hand. I read for a little while. Chat with Marion by text. She’s got a full day ahead, herself. By 8am I’m dressed and out the door. I have yard work to do. Lots of catching up after a long-neglected spring.

When I was a kid, I hated yard work. Mowing. Raking. Trimming. These were the chores assigned to me. I thought of it as drudgery.

We’d be finishing up supper. Dad would push back from the table. “Before you do anything else tomorrow, I want you to mow the yard.”

“I was planning to ride my bike into town and play ball with the guys.”

He was unmoved. “Well, if you get at it early, you’ll have time to play ball after you finish.”

Yard work always got in the way of more important things.

It’s different now. Even though I might still procrastinate, once I get in “the zone” I’m fine. I kind of enjoy it. I like that the results are satisfying. I like that what I do around the yard makes things look better. I also like that doing yard work gives me time to think.

I’ve been staring at the two camellia bushes at the end of the driveway for weeks. I’ve said to myself a dozen times, “I’ve got to prune those things.” Today is the day.

I walk over to my truck, lift the toolbox lid, and grab my hand pruners. I’ve made a million-bazillion pruning cuts in my life. Jobs in Atlanta. Callaway Gardens. The tree farm. My hands and eyes do the work while my mind wanders down the path of life.

I never once saw my life turning out the way it has. I could never have imagined a journey so full of twists and turns. It never occurred to me that I would become a widower at 64 and be married again at 68. You don’t plan for that.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m not in charge of the plan, too. Just a couple of months after Beth passed, my granddaughter asked me point blank, “Are you gonna get married again?” She was the only member of my family to be so direct. A child doesn’t know any better than to ask the forbidden question.

The irony is that I told her, “No, honey, I don’t have any plans to get married again.”

I would have missed one heck of a good woman had I stuck to that plan. I will be forever grateful that the Plan that matters most overruled me in this case.

The camellias are done. The American boxwood is next. Over by the truck, the winter honeysuckle is arching out over the asphalt too far. I am snipping and leaving debris in my wake of thought.

The second time around with Marion has not been without its challenges. We still maintain two houses. We balance our lives between Pine Mountain and Newnan, allowing for the independence that we both had become accustomed to, and then we come together for our “adventures” as she likes to call them.

Sometimes, I confess, it feels like we’re still dating. I’ll call her and ask if she’s seen my wife. Or she’ll show up at my house and act all confused saying she forgot she had a husband. It’s an arrangement that confuses the heck out of some folks that ask how we’re doing it all.

I’ve put away the pruners. I mowed the lawn a few days ago. They say there’s a chance of rain in the forecast. So, I take my little hand-held crank spreader and start putting out the stuff that kills grubs. The darn armadillos are still wrecking my lawn. You’d think I would have wiped them out by now, but they seem to multiply like mice. For each one I take out, four more take his place.

After the grub killer, I put out some fertilizer. After the fertilizer, I crank out some fescue seed. I’ve got some thin places in the deep shade. I’m walking in straight lines, back and forth, mindlessly turning the crank.

My attention turns to a text I got yesterday. The most profound day of the year. A day of holy wonder, if you will. Living hope and unfathomable mystery.

I had my phone off during church, so when I got to my truck I checked for messages. I only had one and it was from a friend of mine whom I’ve known since we were kids. He spoke of his wife and in part said, “she passed away around 10:15 this morning.”

I’m walking across the yard but in my mind, I’m still sitting in my truck reading that text over and over. I promised to call him today, but I know that there is nothing I can say that really matters. There are no words. I think about the irony. The blessing to be done with cancer. The tragedy of loss. The dull stupor he feels about what to do with his life now that she’s gone.

At least, when I call, he knows that I speak from experience.

I clean up the spreader and put it away in my shop. It’s only 10:30. Time to run a sprinkler and take the power shears to the huge Loropetalum by either side of the steps up to the kitchen porch. I am quietly cursing the day I planted these things. They’re beautiful, but they grow like weeds.

I sometimes wish that life could be perfect. The perfect house. The perfect job. The perfect parents. The perfect circumstances. The perfect choices. But that’s a fool’s dream. Life is too complicated for perfect.

Perhaps the blessing of my life is that all of my greatest discoveries, all the remarkable moments of faith, and all the wonderful seasons of love have come to me in this world exactly because of all the imperfections. What I see as flawed, God sees as beautiful. What I see as broken, He sees as whole. What I see as a failure, He sees as grace.

I believe this. Every moment of my life was established as part of the Plan before I ever spoke a word. Nothing happens that is beyond His watchful eyes. I may fight it. I may weep over it. I may even deny it. But like the old VBS song, He has the whole world in His hands. And that includes me.

The blower is put away. The clean up done for the morning. It may not be perfect, but I like my yard.

The same goes for my life.