by Leola Washington

Created on: August 12, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

Like many things in life, this true garden story begins with an admission of guilt: one of my family's most embarrassing secrets is a belief in "premonitions" that warn us about impending danger. The last time this belief reared its ugly head just happened to be in our garden at Bay Meadows Drive.

One afternoon a few years ago, my mother was intent on removing some of the tree branches which were steadily engulfing our patio cover. In those days we had a grape vine plant which grew right over our garden of mustard green plants. She was standing on a ladder by the fence and perched precariously halfway between the earth and the cement. She'd always loved gardening and the landlords we rented from cherished us because of the increased property values on our houses. Our conversation had once again begun to drift onto the subject of my mother's dreams.

She insisted that the night before an accident I'd had years ago, she'd had a dream of me in a coffin. My sisters and I scoffed as usual and rolled our eyes, but then I started to have a creepy feeling. I had this thought 'what if my mother fell off the ladder'.

There wasn't a bolt of lightning, or a flash from the future like in the movies, just a question, hovering silently in the air. My mother kept insisting that she always has dreams right before something bad happens and that if we ever had a "premonition" we should tell her right away. I stood silently by our birdcage and continued to watch as her ladder teetered beneath her solid frame. Her arm wavered back and forth with the pruning motion, and I couldn't stop the weight of that chilling question from burning inside my brain.

"Leola, I know you would tell me if you dreamed of something bad happening to me, right?" My mother half jokingly said.

" Well, to be honest, I keep having this strange thought that you might fall off the ladder," I admitted sheepishly.

" That's just a coincidence. I shouldn't keep psyching you girls out with all this talk," she said.

"No, really. I have a funny feeling," I said. And here's where she started to get annoyed.

" Why don't you just go inside the house then, if you feel that strongly about it."

"Fine. You're the one that said I should tell you-"

"Just go," she said from the ladder. I walked into the house and shut the door. I'd made it about halfway into the living room before I heard a scream from behind me.

My brother came running out of the hallway, and there, on the ground by the steps was my mother. No, she hadn't fallen off the ladder as I'd predicted, she'd fallen down the three porch steps and sprained her ankle on the way back into the house.

As my brother dialed 911, I yelled "I knew it! I told you!".I was probably eleven or twelve at the time, and it didn't occur to me that this might not be the time to proclaim my psychic abilities.

I think my mother's love of gardening provided the backdrop to some of the most quirky and poignant memories that characterize my family's past, and that gardens vividly enrich the experiences of ordinary life.

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