by Anndi Martin

Created on: June 05, 2008

Healing in the garden: How Gardening Helped Me to Heal Some say laughter is the best medicine. For me, gardening -my newfound hobby - was a great prescription for recovery. It was July 1997 specifically the third of July 3. The day's significance was my one-year anniversary. It was just one year ago that I heard the doctor's diagnosis repeating in my head. The lump I found was lobular breast cancer. That day, I had bought a beautiful rose bush. My Dad and I were deciding where to plant it. This was not just a rose bush purchased from the local home improvement store. This rose bush was a sign of life . . . a vision of beauty and more importantly, a symbol of my new life and a celebration of one year being cancer-free. Once we decided it would go at the beginning of the driveway, Dad and I started to dig up the soil, making the hole bigger in width and depth as we continued to make the suitable home for my rose bush to grow. My hands became encrusted with the soil and for once, dirt on my hands did not bother me at all. I was enjoying my newfound hobby gardening. My Mother watched with tears flowing down her face. To stop the flow of that stream of tears, Mom remarked that she never thought I would ever grow up to enjoy gardening. After all, you do get your hands dirty. As a child, I hated it when if my hands got dirty. It did not matter if my hands were covered with dripping down the sugar cone, melted chocolate soft-serve ice cream that Mom bought me from the Mr. Softee Truck. You may remember this mobile server of frozen treats traveling through your childhood neighborhood and announcing its arrival with the same, repetitive music. Or, if my hands got wet and dirty from rescuing my pinkie ball the Spaldeen (known as the "Spalding High Bounce Ball) from the dark grey water flowing down the street, along the curb to its destination the sewer. I was always washing my hands. My Mom's memories of my childhood included a slew of complaints involving her repeated trips down the steps from the one-flight up apartment we lived in to answer the doorbell. She found her oldest daughter, a skinny, five-year old on the other said of the heavy wood, front door. Oh, no . . . not again. I needed to wash my hands . . . again just like the other five times in the past hour. Every time the Spaldeen I was playing with "touched" the ground, I needed to wash my hands. This was a predictable consequence. Our favorite game involved bouncing my dime store ball to my cousin who stood

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