Have you ever planted a garden and followed all the garden etiquette and made sure that the soil was fertilized and softened to encourage the growth of the new seed or tiny seedling? Have you pulled your children out from their warm beds to rush barefooted and still in their PJs to see the first tiny tomato bursting forth before all the others?

What is it to grow a garden? To till the soil and fight the rocky ground and force the it to make something grow from next to nothing?

As I came into the spring of my first year away from my crazy ex, I decided that the children and I must grow a garden. I took them to the farmer's co-op and together we selected our tiny plants that would entrust their miniscule lives to us for the next several months.

We chose Big Boys (I'd heard they were very good tomatoes) and Earlies and Tommie Toes (what we called them when I was a child). We picked peppers and cucumbers and squash. I let my children decide.

Caty and Joe became excited and began to pick flowers and leafy green things that would help make our tiny house a home. And...I let them. \No rational evaluation of what would or would not grow. They picked their flowers and their vegetables and together we took our bounty to the check out stand.

And when the total came to well over a hundred dollars, I paid the bill with a smile on my face. We were putting our hands in rich dirt and fingering green leaves of various plants. And it all felt so good.

In Middle Tennessee, the ground is filled with rocks. We sit on top of limestone, I think, and the first few inches of soil usually yield a dead end in the form of hard, impenetrable bedrock.

My neighbor loaned me her tiller. That is actually how we first met. She saw my son and I struggling, and she came over to lend a helping hand. Joseph learned to "till"that day. We began to understand the challenges of growing a garden in the back yard of our tiny home in a state such as ours. But, we tilled away.

Several rocks were kicked and thrown and blown out of the way, and in the end we had an eight by ten plot.

My friend Lori wrote a song about having a home in the mountains and a table filled with food she had grown herself. I heard this song almost two years after I planted my first garden. It reminded me that my children and I had enjoyed many tomatoes grown from our own garden that first spring when we were on our way to healing. We enjoyed two cucumbers, and a few chili peppers. Alas. we never did enjoy the squash or cabbage — too bitter, anyway.

Our spring garden nine months after the divorce yielded something else besides vegetables for our table. It gave my small children and I something to work together to grow. A new life. It's all about planting and nurturing and helping even the tiniest of plants to grow and maybe bring forth a lovely flower or juicy Tommie Toe.

Plant a garden. Watch it grow.

You will grow, too.