Any given day of the week you could find my grandmom (Jane) in her garden. Tending, weeding, loving her plants. She was a gardener. And the rows of bright red tomatoes and abundance of flowers that danced in the salt air were a testament to her love and skill.
A few years ago, right before the house was sold, I visited and walked around the property. I got a little teary looking at the garden overgrown with weeds, her greenhouse empty. There really wasn't anything physical that could take the place of my grandmom, although I had searched the house for something to take with me, some keepsake that would somehow keep her close. There was no piece of jewelry, antique or ancient book that could fill the hole in my heart. But when I stood in her garden, it was as if she were there with me, just out of view, behind the pepper plants. The sweetpeas that had grown next to the patio were past bloom and had gone to seed, and as I said my final goodbye to the home that held so many memories, I took as many pods as I could. Held them close to my heart and thought of her.
When I got home, I turned the earth, scored the seeds, soaked them overnight and planted them. And then I waited. And it seemed like I waited forever. And that year, I received one bloom. One tiny little seedling with a flower that was almost bigger than the vine itself. And in the years that followed, nothing. No more sweet peas.
Yesterday, I was taking a walk around our yard and from a distance, among the weeds that have taken over what used to be a carefully tended patch of earth I saw fuchsia. And my heart lifted.
There... almost 6 years after I planted them, were sweet peas. My grandmom's sweetpeas.
Tears fell again. But it was joy this time.
So my friends, look for little miracles. Never discount the strength and perserverance of love. Just when it seems like your garden is fallow and the weeds are the only things that will grow, there might just be something beautiful waiting to burst from overgrowth.
Thank you grandmom.
xo
J
