A Gardening Sabatical: Saying Good-bye to Daddy

I love to garden. Fruits, veggies and flowers. It is a wonderfully satisfying and relaxing hobby that I learned from my father.

When he was alive, his flower gardens could have been on the cover of any number of gardening magazines you see lining the racks at your local home & garden center. They were absolutely gorgeous! They were filled with all the colors of the rainbow. He definitely had a 'green thumb.'

This past February my father passed away and with his passing went my desire to garden. Who would I share my successes with? My husband has little interest in anything that grows unless it is being served for dinner. Who would I ask questions of when I had failures? My father was like a gardeners' encyclopedia. I could call him up and tell him what my plants were doing or not doing and he could quickly tell me the remedy to the problem. Sure, I could probably easily look up the answers I needed on any descent gardening site, but I didn't want to. Oh, I'm sure I could find some great magazines or books on the subject at the local library, but again, I didin't want to. So I decided that for the first time in about 10 years, I would not garden. I was taking a gardening sabatical while I took the time to say good-bye to my father.

All throughout the month of March, I felt as if I was just going through the motions. I was numb. I was sad. I missed my father. My birthday came and went without any grand celebration, which for those that know me, know that is not the way I do things. By the end of March I realized that I had not done anything to prepare for planting season, which was quickly approaching being that I live in the South and the ground temperatures warm up fairly early. I contemplated getting at least a small patch of vegetable going, nothing too fussy, maybe just a few tomato plants, some squash, some cucumbers. But each time I thought about digging in the dirt I thought of my father and it made me sad. So I never planted anything.

April went by in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Between trying to keep up with my assignments (I decided to go back to school when I got laid off last year) and trying to keep some normalcy to our day-to-day lives, I felt drained and overwhelmed. Something as simple as starting a load of laundry would send me into tears. I knew it was normal and that I was just going through the grieving process and that it would take time, but it made getting things done that much more of a challenge than usual, so throwing a garden into the mix just wasn't going to happen.

At the time, one of my best friends was expecting her second child to arrive at the end of April. Well, April came and went and no baby. May arrived and with it came a renewed sense of sadness because my father's birthday is in May. My friend had her baby just one day before his birthday and for some unexplainable reason, that felt perfect to me. Here was this new, tiny little life that had just begun and it gave me some peace in my heart. I can't tell you why the birth of my friends daughter helped to renew my spirit, but it did. And I can't explain why in my heart and mind it mattered that she was born so near, yet not on my father's birthday, but again, it did. I think partly it is because his day is still his day. I won't have to attend any parties or eat any cake on "his day." And that just seems right.

I was beginning to feel like myself again. My heartache and my loss were becoming more and more bearable and less overwhelming. I was finished with my spring term classes and looking forward to my summer classes. And I was stopping to smell the roses again, literally. It was too late in the growing season too really get things started for a vegetable garden, but I was ready to plant again. So this year I dug my containers out of the storage room and decided to plant a few flowers. I chose some simple, easy to grow plants that wouldn't require much maintenance but that still bought some color and joy back into my life. I even managed to plant a rose in the small garden I have by my mailbox. And on one trip to the garden center, I purchased a small patio Roma tomato plant, which is currently bursting with its' second harvest of fruit.

I learned many things from my father over the years. I learned to love God and all of his many blessings. I learned to save more than I spend. I learned that music can bring joy to even the saddest of hearts. And I learned that gardening is not just hobby. It is a connection to nature, it is an art and it is a gift. I am looking forward to planting my garden next year, veggies and all. And I look forward to a bountiful harvest!

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