by Lauren Bove

Created on: March 02, 2010   Last Updated: March 30, 2010

We were the same.  Simple, appreciative and fun loving.  Two kids sitting on either side of life.  One old and one young.  Gardening or exploring the yard was our center and our fun.  And as I plunge my hands deep into the freshly tilled earth beside my home I remember her keenly.  

She casually tended her gardens.  These were not to be found in "Fine Garden" magazine.  Gertrude Jekyl might have had the vapors surveying the nonsensical pairings and untended nature of the place. She had no patience for finery or for bullshit.  Her gardens were safe for kids or cats to romp around in.  I'll never forget her pleasure at the snipped bits of roses and impatiens that I would present to her by the handfuls.  I could not make a mistake as she allowed me to feel perfect in her garden.  

Her gardens were safe havens for both of us.  They were natural.  Best of all they were fun.  When we would take a stroll around the yard, she would point everything out to me for my education.  With pride she stated:  "Weeds are plants too, and I'm keeping these here.  I think they are pretty little things."  I agreed.  The clump of Queen Anne's lace did make a regal statement.  It was old fashioned looking and seemed as important as anything else in the yard.  

"This is my compost heap", she would tell me as we strolled by the back corner of her land, looking at massive lump of dirt and potato peels.  "This is where I put my garbage that will rot.  It keeps my house smelling fresh to bring this stuff out here."   "It makes the best earth for my garden, by and by."  "Also, " she would smile, "it keeps my kitchen garbage light enough for me to take out on my own."  I glance at the twisted hands in her lap.  At seven, I could only see intelligent, creative and powerful hands.  (They were the last thing I would look at when she died.  Memorized.)  

Looking around her sloping lawn I saw the fruit of those hands and was proud of her. She made the land come alive and burst forth with the love and happiness that was as abundant in her heart as it was all around me.  The daffodils, the bachelor buttons, the hyacinth the climbing roses and so many delicious treats coaxed lovingly from that little patch of land by those hands, that heart.  Peach trees with more peaches than leaves, stalks and stalks of rhubarb canes surprising you around every corner, mint leaves willfully thriving in patches scattered about her lawn and tucked in the glass of our iced tea, rich ruby red tomatoes at the end of summer and so much more.

My hands feel cool in the earth by my home.  I feel planted.  Is it foolish to sit still like this, waiting for the memories to pour back?  I don't care if it is.  It's comforting.  The earth.  The life.  The memories. Gardening, connecting and becoming part of the earth feels right.  I am still with her and she is all around me.

Now, as I pull old spent bulbs out and put new fresh plump bulbs in with their hopeful green sprouts reaching upward toward the heavens, I too feel hopeful.  Some kind of understanding blooms in my soul.  I am uncertain as to what it's all about - life, love and loss.  I do not know.  But with my nose full of this minerally freshness and my hands muddy, dirty nails, I feel her and everyone else I used to love that has left.  It makes sense to me in a way that words undo.  I don't think I am meant to understand in words, but inside, in feeling, in the place where all growth begins.  In the heart of it all, in the garden.

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