The loss of my mother seemed more than I could bear three weeks ago, and now a number of my fellow citizens are in mourning for something else – the possible loss of our democratic and republican ideals. I know the wounds feel fresh for many, as does the emptiness I feel each day as I notice a chrysanthemum in bloom or one of our beagles playfully rooting out of a rosemary willow in search of a vole—moments I would normally have memorialized with a call to my 97-year-old mother. The conversation would inevitably be followed up by sending images of the mums to my Mom’s electronic picture frame that sat across from the sofa where my mother and I spent much of the last month reminiscing as her life came to a peaceful end. Day after day since that time, as I reach into my pocket for my phone, I feel a profound sadness for what was and is no longer. My mother was a touchstone with the world for me, and part of how I organized and managed my life—and my garden.
As I would share the joys of my garden, I would also share the concerns I have for its very existence, such as the extended drought currently threatening my garden that some say is part of a natural cycle of weather patterns and others ascribe to global warming. My mother loved to extemporize on how Al Gore, ignored by others for his opinions on global weather change, was right. She would console me and advise me on how to counter such threats, all the while telling me of her concerns for the oak tree that sits outside my childhood bedroom window, or the shrubs that seem to be under attack from a surfeit of rabbits. She provided a sense of comfort and solace, as well as an approach to moving things forward regardless of the cause of the issue that was both practical and manageable.
Now that she is gone, I cannot help but look at the tools I brought back with me from Chicago: her long-handled Japanese hoe with an edge as sharp as my mother’s opinions, and a pair of 50-year-old loppers that belonged to my dad that have a strength matched only by the power of my father’s dedication to the values that were passed on to him from his parents. My father and his siblings bore names that felt more appropriate for characters in a Henry James novel than in a family that came to this country between the wars. The siblings Truth, Justice, Equality and Liberty are no longer extant—my Aunt Equality, commonly referred to as Sissy, was the last of them to go a few years back. But these tools from my parents and the values embodied in my father’s family are with me still, and they give me direction about how to move on in challenging times.
In the days ahead, I will use my mother’s hoe to pull cool-season weeds away from young plantings that will then be given the water they need to put them to bed after a prolonged drought and, over the years, I will use my father’s loppers to prune away damaged, diseased and decaying branches from the trees and shrubs in our yard. And I will honor the virtues embodied in my father’s family as I select new plants to add to our garden, where my mother has asked me to spread her ashes as we plant new trees like the ones she and I would chat about over the phone when she was still with us. I will plant both native hemlocks and winterberries and non-invasive plants from around the world that will contribute to the landscape that surrounds me. In short order, I hope to do what we all need to do in this moment—respond with our best tools, values and decisions about how to make the world a place where we want to be.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
