The Yarrow on the Side of the Road

 

A few days ago, I found a yarrow plant on the side of the road outside Oak Harbor.

Not in a nursery.
Not in a carefully curated garden center.
Not with a cute little tag telling me how much sun it needed.

On the side of the road.

Traffic had backed up, and there it was. Dakota reached out, yanked the thing out of the ground by its roots, wrapped it in a wet paper towel, and tossed it into the car.

That should have been the end of the story.

Any gardening expert worth their salt would probably tell you that being ripped out of the earth, hauled around in a vehicle all day, and stuffed into a temporary pot with a snake plant is not ideal growing conditions.

Yet here we are, and tell that to the yarrow. 

The yarrow is thriving.

Not surviving.

Thriving.

New growth. Upright stems. No dramatic wilting. No passive-aggressive yellowing of leaves. No plant version of filing a complaint with management.

Just growth.

And honestly, I can't stop thinking about it.

Because some things are tougher than they look.

We spend so much time believing that being uprooted will destroy us. That if life changes too quickly, if we lose the thing we depended on, if we're taken away from familiar ground, we won't survive it.

Then along comes a roadside yarrow to remind us that resilience is a real thing.

Sometimes survival isn't pretty.

Sometimes it looks like being carried around in a car wrapped in damp paper towels and sheer determination.

Sometimes it looks like starting over in a place you never expected to be.

Sometimes it looks like losing the life you thought you were going to have and finding out you're still standing anyway.

The yarrow wasn't given ideal conditions.

It wasn't gently transplanted by a master gardener.

It wasn't protected from stress.

It was simply stubborn enough to live.

And maybe that's the lesson.

Not every season of life is about flourishing.

Some seasons are about holding onto enough root to make it to the next place.

The flourishing comes later.

The Oak Harbor Yarrow didn't know it was supposed to die.

So it didn't.

There is wisdom in that.