There are moments as a mother when time seems to fold in on itself. When the child you once knew and the person standing in front of you somehow exist in the very same moment. I had one of those watching my son walk ahead of me on an overgrown trail through the wetlands of Florida.

There is something tender about watching your children grow up. It happens so slowly that sometimes you do not even notice it happening. The little hands that once reached instinctively for yours begin to let go. And somewhere along the way, you begin to wonder where that little child went. But every once in a while, you get a glimpse of them again.

Every fall, the onion trucks would come. You could see them lumbering down the open country roads of Hooper, Utah, their beds piled impossibly high with enormous onions pulled fresh from the fields. And then they would come to Pig Corner. The turn was tight enough that something wonderful occasionally happened. They lost their onions.

Being pruned does not mean being diminished. Sometimes it means being prepared.