by Melanie Aves

Created on: February 14, 2011   Last Updated: February 25, 2011

 The damp, dark earthy smell and velvety moss carefully planted in the shape of a cross, these are vivid memories recalling one of my earliest childhood gardening experiences. 

 When I was seven years old, our family pet, an English setter named Patsy, died at age thirteen.  This was my first personal encounter with death and loss, and I shed copious tears when I understood that I would never again stroke the soft, spotty coat or look into the deep, soulful eyes of that kindly old dog. I had lost a beloved friend.

 As an only child, my parents encouraged me to play (and think) creatively.  My father’s partner, an elderly physician, had died a year earlier, and I had attended a service honoring him at the St. Andrews Episcopal Church, so I knew about funerals.  In the springtime, I had visited the cemetery with my mother, to tend the grave of her father, so I also knew about memorial places. I felt that my sadness about our dog demanded an expression.   I wanted to honor the memory of Patsy with a funeral service, and I wanted to create a memorial place to ensure that he would not be forgotten.  I drew up a plan for my project and showed it to my mother.

 My mother suggested that I choose a place on the north side of our home, where it was quiet and away from the playground equipment and fieldstone barbecue grill on the south side.  I selected a spot under the center tree of a trio of tall Northern spruces at the edge of our property that my mother dubbed “The Three Graces.”  The ground was almost bare because of the deep shade from the thick branches, but there were no roots extending or protruding as there were around the nine sugar maples surrounding our Victorian house.  I cleared away a few stray weeds, and carefully outlined the shape of my design into the space with a stick. 

 I planned to make a cross. The width of each element was about four inches, with the vertical bar about sixteen inches tall and the horizontal bar about twelve inches across.   I tilled the soil with a forked hand tool to loosen and prepare it for my planting, and then I set out to collect my plants. 

 I intended to use moss, because I had noticed and loved its bright green color and velvety texture in parts of our yard.   With a pointy -tipped spade, I worked sections of moss loose from the sod in the north yard of the house, carefully choosing plants

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