Lost Garden

 

 

Weeds
Overwhelmed beds
Rampant neglect of years
Coma’s end is in sight
Resilience

 

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As a child, I had an aversion to gardening. This antipathy was the direct result of my childhood job of weeding. ACK!!!

Why did the children in our family acquire this “fun job” as our introduction to gardening?

Inevitably, as part of married life, Ray and I became home owners. Ironically (or not), the land needed much care. Of course, neither Ray nor I had a clue of how to pursue the necessary transformation. I began contemplating gardening from a different perspective.

I consulted my guru of gardening, my dad.

So, with delight, gardening became an evolving affair I appreciated sharing with him. It provided us with yet another father-daughter bonding activity.

He visited twice a year – spring and fall. Spring was the “gardening” trip and fall was the “cooking for the freezer” trip.

Whether he enjoyed or despised weeding – he never shared. However, he spent hours on end, weeding and weeding and weeding. He treated this menial task as the most important garden assignment available.

Under his tutelage, our perennial-based garden flourished, and he showered compliments on our progress with each seasonal trip.

When he passed away three years ago, I could not abide working in the yard. I tried … frequently; thinking with each attempt, working the garden would be good therapy. However, I could not muster more than a short stay.

Amazingly, I awoke one morning last week, and felt a strong pull to the outdoors … to the pull of weeding …

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© by rgb for “On Dragonfly Wings with Buttercup Tea”, 2011