At one point in my life, before I had this many children, I contemplated reviewing books for a living, or at least a sideline job. I’d done so for a literary magazine at one point, non-fiction young adult books that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve had other opportunities, also which evolved into different open doors to traverse and my life has taken me here as the mom of 39 children.

I used to read a great deal, not having a TV when my oldest daughter was a child, and of course no internet as it wasn’t invented then. I was a school library media specialist for 25 years and my life was all about books.

Nowadays with these lovely, yet demanding, children of mine, it’s rare for me to get to read a book. Reading remains a first love of mine, something I dearly adore doing in my free time.

Now free time is a lost commodity certainly, but I’m not bored, rather I’m challenged every single minute by the many demands not only of a large family, but of a troubled group of children. I’ve always adopted from the ‘special needs’ category; minority, older sibling groups rife with emotional issues and, at times, with physical challenges.

My youngest child, now nearly five, has freed me up from the demands of the last 11 years that included toddlers from sib groups, raising three grandchildren from infancy, diapers, formulas and no sleep. I feel curiously free now as my kids can all dress themselves, something I haven’t experienced in many years.

So I read a book that was not about adoption or children’s mental health issues.

I could hardly put down Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. My oldest daughter read it and raved, then I did so, now my mother is reading it, I suppose I should ask my oldest granddaughter to join in our multi-generational challenge to local eating just to keep the family links going.

My gardens have always sustained me through our rocky years, and some calm ones, but always it is where I go in order for my life to make sense to me. It is not easy to raise even one older child from the system. I greatly appreciate and admire every parent on earth who has tried to do so; it is the most challenging endeavor yet also the most rewarding.

I would advise every adoptive parent of older children to find their passion that will carry them through the heartache and the bliss of parenting, be it golf, knitting, card games, furniture refinishing or whatever. Find something that carries you away.

Kingsolver expresses it best:

“We love our gardens so much it hurts. For their sake, we’ll bend over till our backs ache, yanking out fistfuls of quackgrass by the roots as if we are tearing out the hair of the world. We lead our favorite hoe like a dance partner down one long row and up the next, in a dance marathon that leaves us exhausted. We spend hours bent to our crops as if enslaved, only now and then straightening our backs and wiping a hand across our sweaty brow, leaving it striped with mud like some child’s idea of war paint.”

That’s exactly how I feel. I have several child sized chairs in my gardens; the kids join me to talk and to observe the beauty of the earth while I work. They have no memories of me not having a garden; I’ve never not done so. Even my oldest daughter, now nearly 34, remembers our small plot that one year in New Orleans, it would have been unthinkable to not dig up dirt and coax food from it.

It’s where I go to think, to plan, to cry at times, and to rejoice when my children succeed. I could not have lived this life I’ve chosen without gardening. I’ve needed it more than oxygen, it’s been my life support system and I know it’ll continue as such for decades to come.

I continuously aspire to demonstrate to my children both the joy of reading and the fun ability to raise one’s own delicious groceries.