"We are nearest to God in a garden" - Unknown
Turn, Turn, Turn (The Byrds)
This time of year I always start to get the itch to get out into my garden. The purple, white and yellow crocuses are already beginning to bloom. I see the tips of the tulips, hyacinths, and daffodills beginning to poke their green heads up through the cold, dark ground. The roses are beginning to bud, as are the hydrangea. The temperatures are warming and before long all of the lovely colors and smells of Spring will be erupting along the side of my house and in the yards of my neighbors up and down my street. Is there anything more hopeful and inviting than the blossoming of Spring after a long, cold, dark and snowy winter?
My mother loved her flower gardens. She had roses that could rival the best in the country! She enjoyed iris, lilies, hyacinths, lilacs, and petunias. One of the things that I can remember doing with my mother is planting the petunias in the small garden patch along the front walkway up to our house. Mother would dig the hole and I would pour in a mixture of water and Miracle Gro fertilizer. Sometimes she would let me put the plants into the hole and she would cover their roots and then, vice versa, and I would cover the plants after she put them in the hole. We both enjoyed the sight and smell of the purple, white and pink petunia that we planted together there.
My mother came from a family heritage of gardeners. My grandfather always had a lovely flower garden (as well as a vegetable garden) along the side of his yard. Grandpa would grow huge sunflowers along his fence line and would harvest the seeds for snacking in the fall. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and he would make cute mechanical garden ornaments that would move in the breeze. As a child I used to love to look at Grandpa's garden and the little woodcutter chopping wood in the breeze, or watch the pinwheel spinning in the wind. My mother learned well from her father the art and skill of gardening.
Each Spring I can hardly wait to make my annual trip to the greenhouse to select my plants for the flower garden and my container vegetable garden. I remember one Spring, I believe it was the year after my mother passed away, I went out into my yard and began digging in the flowerbed to prepare it for planting some marigolds. As I began digging I kept thinking of my mother and the times that we spent together planting and working in her gardens together. Suddenly she was there. Not in any physical form, but I felt her presence as if she were standing right beside me, planting along with me. Every Spring as I look at the garden spot and plan for the upcoming season I think of my mother. I will forever associate working in my flower garden with my mother. I have a garden stone that I put out every Spring. On it is written the scripture found in Ecclesiates 3:1.
I have found this a fitting tribute to honor and remember my mother as I set it out in my garden every Spring. Once again it is fitting for the time of life in which I find myself, my youngest child graduating from high school and leaving home for college this Fall. Twice I have already experienced this with my two oldest children who are married and living on their own, too far away from home. I know too well the pain of parting with loved ones. We will all be together for a brief time this Spring for the graduation festivities. It will be a joyous and welcomed occasion, and I will savor each moment of it as I know it will be all to brief. Once again our life paths will cross; too soon it will be over and everyone will be back into their own life journey. So turns the circle of life, so change the seasons of our life.
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."
(Ecclesiastes 3:1 - 8)
Turn Around (The Mormon Tabernacle Choir)
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