The bees, if they could talk, would’ve called it a home invasion. They’d dug their dwelling place in the ground, and for all I know, had hung a sign that said “Home Sweet Home.” They would’ve said they were going about their morning routines, just keeping body and soul together. They would’ve said, “Mine, mine, mine.”
The land belonged to us. We had bought and paid for it ten years earlier when we decided to make Hattiesburg our permanent home. Countless hours in the yard and copious quantities of sweat added to my feeling of possession and left me a bit overanxious about weeds making an appearance. I was trying to get them out of my flowerbed. I would have said, “Mine, mine, mine.”
As I yanked out that clump of weeds, the bees attacked. In the battle for ownership, I lost overwhelmingly. Nursing my wounds with outdated creams, meat tenderizer, and my husband’s cure for all things – hydrogen peroxide – I held a pity party for myself. I had been besieged at my own house in my own yard. And then – as it often does – my mother’s voice kicked in.
This time it was from the vantage point of my memory of two double beds where Mama read a favorite Psalm at the end of her bedtime reading to her four daughters. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.” Psalm 24:1
Perhaps, the bees and I need to think of a way to share joint tenancy to what is really ours on a very temporary basis.