This spring, I noticed that my rhubarb plant was getting overgrown. I was not going to be able to use it all. That same week in May, as often happens in a world full of grace, someone on social media was asking for a rhubarb plant. I made arrangements for her to pop over to split it so it could be transplanted. 

Weeks before, I had accepted a new job in a new province. Our family has been preparing to be uprooted and transplanted. We have moved a surprising number of times, certainly more than I ever imagined when Marc and I married 20 years ago, and for the first time in my adult life, I have the sense this once could be a long stay with deeper roots. Time will tell. 

In the meantime, I have been thinking about what it is like for plants to be uprooted and transplanted. I’m a fairly novice gardener and the metaphor might break down, but I’m going to go for it anyway. It often works in the garden and maybe in writing too. 

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Rhubarb, like other perennials needs to be divided and transplanted every five years or so. The plants outgrow their spaces, and get congested. The dividing is part of keeping the plant healthy, as well as producing a good harvest. The gardener goes in and separates the crown and divides the root ball so that each section has roots and buds and stalks. What began as a single plant has grown enough to keep giving fruit in the first location and sustain a new life in a new location. 

There is risk in the uprooting. Some parts of the plant may be damaged or die. But there is also risk in not dividing and transplanting. Old plants can become congested, overcrowded, and produce hard and bitter fruit. 

Once transplanted, the new stalks will take a full year or two to get established in a new location. They will have to adjust to different soil, sunlight, and water conditions. The transplanted rhubarb will still bear the markings and experience of its first location, even while it adapts to the new one. And the careful gardener will watch for the signs that the transplanted life takes root and grows something beautiful in its new home. 

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In the eight homes Marc and I have lived in (across five cities and three provinces) over twenty years of marriage, it strikes me that we are a lot like the rhubarb. It takes courage to allow ourselves to be uprooted and transplanted. The process is risky, and each time, we have left behind people to love from afar, and we have grown in ways we could not have otherwise. 

In July, a friend who had been Marc’s roommate when we began dating was visiting, and she looked longingly at my rhubarb. An avid gardener, she asked if I was taking the rest of the rhubarb to the new house. I said no. She asked if she could have it and I was thrilled to dig it up for someone who I knew would love it. 

We went out with a spade and dug out the rest of the plant. A couple of roots remained when we were done. “Cover them up,” she advised. “You never know. They might come back up in the spring as a surprise.”

This week, with the moving truck unloaded at the new house and me back cleaning the old house, is this strange middle space between the uprooting and the transplanting. We have loved this season of ordinary time in our lives and this community that has loved and held us. We can see everything beautiful and good that we are leaving behind. We do not yet know the names and shapes and colours of the love that awaits us in the next season. 

My middle daughter looked at me with tears this week and said, “I didn’t want to move and I’m just a little scared.” 

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“I know. I’m scared too. It’s hard to live in this space with our roots exposed. We are being transplanted. It’s uncomfortable and it will feel better soon enough.”

May it be so.