I got my heart broken quite spectacularly almost five years ago. During the initial period of feeling more hurt from rejection than anything else, I looked around me at the women who would inspire me to just get on with my life. Twice in one day, I heard about two ladies who, during a 100 degree heat wave, were mowing their lawn because if they didn't do it, who the hell would?
One was my best friend, who was in a particularly bad place with her husband in the midst of leaving her (and cheating on her) yet still living beneath the same roof. He did a lot of sorry, unforgivable things and the least he could have done is cut the grass. Fact.
The other was, is, the strongest woman I will ever know: my mother. Single since I was two years old, she's been cutting her own grass for about 30 years. She's getting older now and it isn't ideal but with one of her daughters living out of state and the other in another country, who else would do it? She has reached the point where she doesn't even consider assistance as an option, and I feel myself taking after her progressively everyday.
I had been composing a playlist for my iPod with songs along the theme of I Will Survive, only without putting that actual song on it (too cliche, you see), and decided that my best friend would need a copy as well. (My mother need not look any further than her southern gospel songs!) I gave her the CD soon after, and named it For Ladies Who Cut Grass.
Since then, there are many other women who I've deemed a Lady Who Cuts Grass, ie a woman who depends on the strength of herself to get her through the hours, days, weeks and years:
My cousin has been raising three young, beautiful girls on her own for years and has relatively recently survived the loss of the girls' father; and although he was already largely absent, it was nevertheless a horrifically difficult loss. For this and the wonderful way she seems not to worry about anything but those wonderful girls, and for many, many other reasons, she is a Lady Who Cuts Grass.
One of my oldest, best friends, is the mother of four young children and though she's married to a wonderful guy who is a great father, she is still a hero worthy of looking up to as she miraculously manages to organize her own life, and the lives of five others plus two dogs and a cat; she has started her own business, a boutique, that is going strong; and she still makes time for herself to read, catch up on television shows, and blog about her amazing life. Darlin', you are a Lady Who Cuts Grass.
One of my closest friends in Scotland is the single mother of two five year old rambunctious boys, who have to travel to New Zealand if they are to see their father. This girl needs a medal for handling these two through all of the falls, injuries, emergency room encounters, all of it without asking anyone for anything. She recently, following a trip to the ER that turned a laid-back Sunday into a Sunday-from-hell, confessed of how hard it is to answer the standard questions like: Do you have anyone to call? No. Do you have your own mode of transportation? No. Yet she just pushes through and just does it. She handles the snide looks of the mummy cliques at school, hand-crafting silly costumes that the teachers unnecessarily require, the double homework, the increasingly large appetite of two boys, all of it. And during it all, she has worked, she has written a book, and she has started two businesses including a recent one involving her very own invention. Would everyone please give it up for this Lady Who Cuts Grass?
So this is essentially a blog dedicated to the strong women I know. I want to blog and brag about accomplishments of women I know and don't know, milestones us females have conquered and funny things that happen along the way to getting things done! To the Ladies Who Cut Grass, I salute you!
