A Gardener's Mantra
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book called Grace from the Garden, a collection of stories about gardeners around the country and how they were helping their communities. I reserved the last chapter for a tribute to my mom, who was an avid flower gardener. And part of that story was the following excerpt, which I thought about today as I was potting up the last of our container plants and weeding a particularly overgrown part of our garden.
It came to mind because so many friends are dealing with loss or illness right now. I thought I’d share this on their behalf.
Two years ago, my dog Sabra died in early March, leaving me with a broken heart. I was single, ending a relationship, and coming to a crossroads in my work. And now Sabra, a malamute who had been my constant companion for eight years, had died of lymphoma, just three weeks after her diagnosis.
We had an early spring that year, so just days after Sabra died, I entered my garden. I opened up a whole new bed, along a side of the yard that had once been reserved for her dog run. I planted sweet woodruff and lily bulbs, made a border of hostas, and added purpose coneflowers and miniature pink roses.
As I dug in the dirt on my hands and knees, I repeated a mantra: I love this plant like I love Sabra. I did it over and over with every plant my hands touched. I blessed the earthworms with it, I blessed the soil, I repeated it until I drove the sadness from my mind and replaced it with peace.
I did it knowing that this was the kind of energy my mom had often brought to and received from the garden.
That year, my garden bloomed like my mother’s always had. It was an endless parade of color, including the dark purple iris my mom had given me. But the plant that turned heads was the climbing rose next to the back door. I had tried to dig it out by the roots years before, as it had only bloomed once. But this spring, the spring I loved the garden the way I loved Sabra, that rose put on hundreds of blooms, a mass of deep pink, climbing up the trellis and up to the second floor of the house.
Inside one day, I looked at the bush through the windows on my back porch, and I realized it had a message for me. Two prominent canes were twisted around each other in the shape of a heart, through which the sun shone and made the roses glow.
This is when I learned what my mom had always known: The life energy that brings flowers into bloom will carry a garden a long way. But give those flowers even a bit of unconditional love, and they can achieve their full potential.
So, to Mary and Jodi, who just lost their beloved dog; Lisa and her ailing dog; Diana, who is dealing with chronic hip pain; Traci, at home recovering from pneumonia while on chemotherapy; Dana, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer; my friend Justine; and all the other friends who are dealing with health issues or loss in their life right now, please know that love is being planted in your honor.
Gardens give us nourishment, beauty, healing, and life. May you plant the seeds of something new today in the name of those you love most.
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Beautiful words! Thank you.