by The Idea Girl

Created on: May 28, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

I was feeling really low and I couldn't believe that my Father had just passed away. Dad always told me he would be here until the end of time. That he would live to be one-hundred years old! He died at the ripe age of sixty. Forty years before his prediction. I needed to do something to honor his memory. So I decided on some retail therapy first. That didn't make me feel better at all. I was trying everything and anything to make myself feel better.

So then I tried some nature therapy. Now that did work. It reminded me of all the times my Father and I had gone for nature hikes. Our night time ritual was to go outside and look up at the stars. We were always looking for the North Star on the end of the Big Dipper, or Orion's belt. Now when I go for a walk at night, I always remember my Father and what we did together for years.

One day while out shopping, I saw this little stone; it said, Dad's Garden. So I bought it and put it on my windowsill. It looked kind of silly, because I had no plants. So the next day I went to Walmart and bought a couple of little plants. I had been reading books about Feng Shui. It was talking about bringing nature into your home. It also suggested that plants will produce extra oxygen. The oxygen would make you more alert and the air would smell fresher in your home.

Every morning I would get up and smell the sweet scent of my plants. After watering them, I would smell the earth. It reminded me of how beautiful the world was. How nature can enthrall you, on your own windowsill. I kept buying more and more plants. Soon I had to get a plant stand to hold all of them. Dad's Garden grew to a total of twenty-five plants. They were all growing like crazy. I had to re-pot them twice.

I started to buy little collectibles. Garden frog figurines and geese figurines. Dad had this thing about geese. Every time they flew overhead, he said it was a sign from God that things would be good.

The geese became a good omen to me. Kind of like a good luck charm. If I made a decision that day, and the geese flew by, I knew everything would be alright. I had moved several times by now. Going from one rooming house to another. Eventually, I ended up living with my Mother.

Being a widow was really hard on her. Mom and Dad had been together for thirty-nine years. Day and night, never apart. She felt lost and isolated and lonely. I moved my Dad's Garden from my bedroom into her living room. We began to share the garden together.

It became a joint project. She added

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