A Flourishing Thing 8/9/2026

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Everything is flourishing these days.

On a morning drive just this week, I took notice as I passed a lush green soybean field, countless thick hay fields, and at least one thriving cotton field dotted with color as blooming was soon to come. There were even shady rows of pecan orchards making emerald corridors from the roadside. Everything was lovely and growing beautifully, and each leaf and bud made me smile.

Then there was the most notable of all the growth as I traveled along: the ten-year-old seated next to me, making kudzu’s growth speed look like that of a crippled snail.

It’s one of those truly complex concepts.

Growth, if you were to ask your average farmer, is a positive thing. But as I saw blooms and flourishing fields, this thriving specimen beside me gave me more emotion than I knew what to do with.

It’s amazing how simply looking at your child and evaluating their growing form can inspire so many different reactions.

There is the moment you look at your child and say, “They’re so grown up!” and it is immediately followed by a proud smile. They are becoming mature and independent, doing things on their own that, not so long ago, were parental-assistance-required types of tasks. You are pleased by their progress toward becoming more independent and self-sufficient.

And it is that very same satisfaction that, the longer it sits and the longer you gaze lovingly, transforms into something deeper.

The gratification fades into the realization that your baby is becoming less of your baby and more of the person who doesn’t need you as much anymore. The independence they are exemplifying begins to feel less like an accomplishment and more like something precious slipping through your fingers, like sand through an hourglass.

Looking at this disconcertingly grown-looking child, all I can envision are the coming years when time with parents is going to become less and less appealing. These thoughts are quickly followed by the day when I won’t even have the opportunity to chauffeur this child around. She’ll be off in her own vehicle, going wherever the wind may take her.

I shudder to think.

Not that I think she’ll go places she shouldn’t, but I am not keen on it even being a possibility.

I know the fledgling can’t stay in the nest forever, and I don’t want her to, but my goodness, can I just get some time to process all this?

She is going too quickly.

We measured her height on July 3rd, and then exactly one month later, on August 3rd, she was two inches taller.

Two. Inches. Taller.

How am I supposed to cope with that level of development? I am only human!

She has lots of very grown-up plans for the future. She already knows who her husband will be, considering he is her “boyfriend.” And I use that term terribly loosely because, my heavens, they are ten years old, and I don’t feel the odds are particularly high that their ten-year-old hearts will end up together when they are twenty-something-year-old hearts.

I have mentioned this to her, and she is thoroughly displeased by my commentary, so I let it go. I understand that. She can live her happy fantasy for the time being. Who am I to rain on a kid’s parade?

Life will do plenty of that.

She also wants to be a pharmacist. She has set her goal to cure cancer, which is lofty but certainly commendable. She has the intelligence to do it, but who knows where her ambitions will lie when the time comes to choose college majors and explore job opportunities? All I can say for sure is that if her interests develop as quickly as her physical body, she could go through another dozen career ideas by the time she’s even done with fifth grade.

She’s growing more compassionate and kinder every day. She has a heart for others. She has never met a stranger and is more social than either me or her father ever thought about being.

To say that she is blossoming is honestly an understatement, and I couldn’t be prouder.

But it’s so quick.

She is a gloriously flourishing tree, but it’s all happening so quickly. She is providing beauty and shade, but she is such a fast grower. I feel like the risk of missing some wonderful season is amplified because of the speed of it all.

I guess all I can do is tend her the best I can and pray that I’ve cultivated well enough for solid roots.

I will say that, though I may be biased, I have hopes of high-reaching branches and a wide-stretching canopy that will be a joy to all who are blessed enough to experience her.