White Henbit and a One-of-a-Kind Writing Activity

I can hear that it's raining outside.  I wonder what that means for the plans to do planting of two of the garden beds in the Partridge Community Garden tomorrow forenoon.  I wouldn't object to having a more leisurely morning than I'm anticipating at this point, but I'd be sorry to see the project delayed.  

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Today was a "writing class day" with my homeschooled grandchildren. Usually we write about nature observations or do a report of some kind or tell a story.  Today was very different.  We wrote on "What We Know About Death."  Everyone in the group (5 children ages 7 to 10) had been at their Great Aunt Chee's funeral, except Lucia, who hadn't quite waited out the recommended Covid quarantine period.  She stayed in the car with her mother during the service and they all went to the cemetery afterward.  Only Joel joined the group at the gathering at the church to which people were invited afterward.  The others bought something to eat at Sonic.  The whole family had Covid recently--fairly mild cases, thankfully, but all took masking precautions on the day of the funeral.  

Back to today's writing class. . . .  I considered my choice of the writing subject for today pretty carefully, before deciding that this was for sure the thing to do.  I realized that simply talking about it openly was probably the best way to allay fears and clear up misconceptions.  That's the logic behind having had the children present during the funeral too (they were quiet and well-behaved throughout, except that some of Autumn's happy baby noises weren't completely quiet).  We didn't plan it that way, but they were present in the room when Chee died.  The past few weeks have been a pretty intense time because of Chee's death.

Our eight-year-old grandson probably had the hardest time of all early on.  He had wanted to visit Chee, first mentioning it on the day before she fell and broke her hip.  His expressing that wish seemed completely random at the time, but now seems almost eerily prescient.  After he heard about her injury and subsequent decline, he wanted to go for sure, but it didn't work out.  On Sunday, their family decided to go for a visit, but they couldn't make it for the start of the birthday party because of other plans.  Before they got there, she had died.  W was inconsolable and wanted to stay in the waiting room instead of going back to where Chee's body still remained just as we had left it.

Nothing his parents could tell him seemed to help.  Then his mother asked if I would talk to  him.  I wished I had thought of doing so myself, but of course I was happy to talk to him.  "Let me tell you what happened this evening just before you came," I began.  Then I told him that we had eaten cake and ice cream and strawberries and talked to each other and talked to Chee, even though she had her eyes closed and she couldn't answer us.  Then someone asked Shane to sing, and while he was singing, she just stopped breathing.  "It was really quiet and peaceful," I told him.  "Do you want to go back to her room?  You can hold my hand, and you can see her sort of sitting up in her bed.  Her eyes are closed, and her mouth is still open because she had to breathe through her mouth to get more air while she was still alive."

He scooted right off that couch and gave me his hand and we walked back there.  We stood at the foot of her bed for a minute or two and talked just a bit.  I think maybe we noted the bruise that was still visible on one side of her neck from having struck something when she fell.  I believe I also mentioned that the song said "Take my hand, precious Lord," and I think maybe she saw Jesus reaching out for her and she must have just put out her hand to go with Him.  Like you did with me just now I could have said, but I didn't. That was the end of his distress.  

Today when I asked what one thing changes when a person goes from being alive to dying, W was quick to say this:  "Something in their body stops working--like their lungs or their heart, or something like that."  What a good answer.

We talked about heaven being a completely good and happy place.  From the funeral service, they recalled some of what the officiant had said--that even after a person dies, they stay alive in our memory.  We recalled together that Chee had a birthday and a death day on the first day of spring, March 20.  They remembered then that the minister had said that on March 20 we left an old season behind and started a new one.  Death is like that too--a change in seasons.  They dutifully recorded these truths in their writing notebooks.  

The final thing we wrote down was a memory we have of Chee.  Going to their house in Sterling on July 4 to see the fireworks over Sterling Lake was a favorite memory, as was Shane singing when she died.  

I don't expect to repeat a writing lesson like this.  Nevertheless, it was, I believe, the right kind of lesson for today.  

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Today's Facebook Post:

Miriam Iwashige

9it3po250cuo54l0ec095ha8  · 

Shared with Public

Be careful about discounting what the children around you report having seen. Albino Henbit. That's what Arwen and Wyatt told me that they had found.

I saw right off that the little bunch of flowers they had picked for me had a Dandelion, some Shepherd's Purse, and some lavender Henbit flowers. I started explaining that the white flowers were actually Shepherd's Purse when I saw that the bouquet did indeed contain some white flowers shaped exactly like the lavender Henbit. They were attached to what was clearly Henbit foliage. What? I had never heard of or seen such a thing. I asked where they had found it, and when they showed me, I saw more of the white among the more common lavender-flowered Henbit.

I recalled reading once that in cultivated garden flowers, almost every lavender flower has a white counterpart. Might this be a similar case?

A little Googling soon turned up an image with both colors of Henbit flowers in the same picture. Text at that same site revealed this: "Flowers are typically pink to purple in color; however, some populations, albeit rare, will have white flowers (see photo)."

Link to article in the first comment below.

Has anyone else seen white Henbit? I'm afraid my eye can never again pass idly over a sea of lavender Henbit. I'll probably have to examine at least a small section of it to see if I can find the rare white flowers. #whitehenbit

Miriam Iwashige

https://www.mississippi-crops.com/.../weed-of-the-week.../

MISSISSIPPI-CROPS.COM

Weed of the Week: Henbit