A Daughter, A Garden, A Memory
As I sit here in my almost 45yr old shoes… to look back and contemplate a time when I was dancing and prancing around in pink ballerina shoes and my life was still saturated with blissful naivety… My parents were perfect human beings (in my eyes) and life was going to unfurl itself to me like the blooming grace of an orchid after an eternity of patience. Yes!!! - NO! No, life sniggered quietly in my ear and said “wait oh little wild one, the world has much to teach you… and it’s going to do it in all the most uncomfortable and brutal ways you could possibly imagine!”
Aint that the truth! The tears were coming, I knew they were - I have been holding them off for quite a bit now - aided mostly by the art of uninterrupted distraction and ironically it was through a part of my “spring cleaning” that I found myself feeling like the open wound from which a scab was just ripped.
For as many years as I can remember I have had this little plastic bag in which I have kept all my most precious things. I am talking about the things which have survived the “mass dumps” over the years. It is a compilation of all the stuff I would like to hold close forever - for whatever reason.
I decided to open it up and go through it. Perhaps not the wisest decision at this particular point in my life, but hey - everything happens for a reason, right?! Sure, a lot of the time we don’t even understand what that reason is… but that does not mean it is not there.
It is not like I don’t know what is in that little bag of keepsakes, but needless to say there have been “this and that” additions over the years which have slipped my mind. I found myself skipping past the obvious objects and pulled out a hard cover green book. A notebook my mom had given me for my birthday in 2002 - which made me 22 at the time. I had zero recollection of even ever writing anything in it… but apparently I did.
That wasn’t what choked me though. My mom was always big on writing meaningful things to those she loved, and it was her words on the inside of the cover which pushed me over the emotional edge. For those of you who may not be able or bothered to read the doctor like scrawl (my mom had awful handwriting, lol) - I will repeat what she wrote:
“Happy Birthday my darling girl, Everyone should have a little book for their garden - especially as we get older because the memory is not as sharp as we may think!! May your garden always bring you joy, teach you patience & give you hope. Teach yourself through your garden - it is like a child - feed it, love it and keep it clean and disciplined, but most of all enjoy it with every season that passes and it will reward you beyond all measure. All my love, mom.”
Simple words, yes - but as my mothers daughter and knowing well, her unmatched passion for gardening and nature, coupled with how that has personally impacted my own life because of her - the words hit home really hard.
Mere days before my mom passed from breast cancer in June 2020, we had more than one medical professional tell us that she was suffering from severe depression. I knew my mom was not exactly exploding at the seams with joy on most days, especially given her circumstances - of which I really did try and do everything I could to improve… but that was a diagnosis I was not anticipating.
It was the correlation between my mothers life, her garden and now my own life and my garden that opened the emotional flood gates when reading her little book inscription and thinking back to who and how she was over the years - with the added information which the doctors had imparted. “As we get older” she said. I don’t think I have opened that book since I was 22 as the only things written in there were done so within the same year.
How little credit we give our parents when we are young. How certain we are in our youthful arrogance that we know better, that their wisdom is outdated, their insights just sentimental - And yet, here I am, standing in the garden of my own life, finding the same solace, the same sanity, in this small patch of earth. It is my refuge, my sanctuary… the one place that makes sense when nothing else does.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of all. Life will teach us what it must, in its own merciless ways. But if we are lucky, it will also leave us with gifts, little notebooks, little gardens, and the quiet, enduring wisdom of those who loved us long before we knew how much we needed them.
❤❤❤
Until next time...
Much Love from Country Bumpkinland, South Africa xxx
Jaynielea
ALL IMAGES ARE MY PROPERTY UNLESS OTHERWISE CREDITED
Typos make me human. I may or may not get around to correcting them.
All written content shared here is my property, unless otherwise credited