To A Gardener...

To a gardener,

Roses will always remind me of you. Classic, beautiful, but bearing a thorn you won't quickly forget. You loved those roses, and you hated them too. American Beauty, Betty Prior, Gardenia, Teasing Georgia, and a hundred others that I can't remember. You knew them all. 

In a good season, when you reigned victorious over the Japanese beetles, you'd host Rose Society teas in the garden and sip cold lemonade. In a bad season, you'd sit on the back porch in that squeaky green chair, the stench of beetle juice wafting through the summer heat, and you'd say to me, "Don't bother with roses. They'll only disappoint you."

Still, it never stopped you from putting on those dirty gardening gloves when spring came the next year. The battle began again, year after year. You always were stubborn. 

That backyard of yours earned a "Wildlife Habitat" award. You posted the metal plate to your white picket fence. I never appreciated all the work you put into my secret garden, did I? Because that's what it was: my secret garden. I imagined that I was "Mary, Mary quite contrary." That place lit up my dreams, like I had stepped into a novel. I think that's why I started writing poetry.

How many times did I sit beneath that old dogwood tree, the one that always bothered you because it wasn't symmetrical? I didn't care about symmetry. I cared about the way it felt when the breeze shook those crooked branches and hundreds of pink blossoms covered my head like snow. That was real magic.

You had two fish ponds. Nobody I knew had two fish ponds. I loved when you'd let me feed them, those enormous orange- and white- speckled fellows with their gaping mouths. In the summertime, you'd toss in that glass ball so that it floated on the surface of the water. Just like in The Frog Prince. But of course, you knew that.

Oh, the countless Easter eggs in ever corner of your garden! Half of the fun was exploring all over again, romping through grass and between bushes in floral pattern dresses. I never got too old for that. Even if I wasn't willing to admit that as a teenager.

So many little things. That awful Sambo fisherman you insisted on putting out every year. Bags of raisins for those insistent catbirds. I have no doubt they'll be back this spring waiting for you. Cans of Birch Beer around the picnic table, always your favorite. The robins that would nest in your clothespin bag. I think you started putting it out every year just for them.  

The hardest to think of is that old rubber swing. That darn swing. It's the hardest because it's also my favorite memory of you. The sensation of flying is still so real to me, even after all these years, back and forth under that giant pine. "Higher, Grams! Higher!" And your singsong voice, so familiar, so anticipated, reciting that Robert Louis Stevenson poem. If I'm ever privileged to have grandchildren of my own, they will hear that poem until they know it by heart.

How do you like to go up in a swing, 
Up in the air so blue? 
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing 
Ever a child can do! 

Up in the air and over the wall, 
Till I can see so wide, 
River and trees and cattle and all 
Over the countryside-- 

Till I look down on the garden green, 
Down on the roof so brown-- 
Up in the air I go flying again, 
Up in the air and down! 

--"The Swing" by Robert Louis Stevenson

As I scratch these words into my notebook, I am convinced that I have not inherited your timeless, spidery handwriting that took years to discern in the hundreds of letters and postcards that you sent to me. But I'm also convinced that somewhere along the way, I have picked up pieces of your quiet spirit, matched with a steadfastness and a resolve to "keep calm, and carry on." And I'm glad. 

So yes, I'm thankful for the garden. But more than that, I'm thankful for the gardener. She toiled to bring joy & life to this world, and now she can finally rest.

Loving you to the moon and back, Jayne.

Hugs & Kisses,
Your Granddaughter