Garden Lesson
I was out for my pre-dawn walk about, saying goodbye to the night, when a thought came to me. I enjoy walking under the outstretched limbs of my trees. It feels as though they are embracing me. Giving me comfort. The big crape myrtle, the oak with the Spanish moss. Even the little trees, the buckhorn the eastern redbud, seem like children glad to see me.
Maybe this imaginary gratitude is why we garden, growing these things, tending to them. Making believe they’re glad to see us because we looked after them and helped them be alive. It is a fairly straight forward relationship, do and do right, and they thrive. It’s easy to wish that people were as uncomplicated, but maybe they are. And maybe the garden is a good place to go to remember that. To understand everything needs to be nurtured and fed and watered to help it be strong and grow and that time is the key.
Take my little Barbados cherry. It started as a single plant. Nearly died that first winter. I covered it for the following two winters. It gained a foothold. It grew. New plants took root, eventually it was tall and imposing. Then came the hard, hard freeze of 2021. It froze to the ground. I trimmed the deadwood. Waited. It came back. It’s full of cherries now. My patience is rewarded, once again. And isn’t that how we should treat our friends? With patience and a nurturing tenderness, expecting only what the friend can give rather than what we want and then being happy with that gift, whatever it might be. Because, in the end, it’s the sum of all the plants and friendships, both big and small, that makes us whole and glad to be alive.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale