My Garden, A Place to Reflect

It’s almost the end of the month and it has been quite a month. Recent April’s showers storms have caused a lot of heart ache and devastation throughout our country’s heartland. Yesterday was the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, a time to remember those lost during one of the darkest, most inhumane moments in human history. My husband’s father, who we affectionately called Old Poppa and lived to the ripe old age of 98, was born this month too. He was a gardener at heart even in his old age, born to a family of sharecroppers in 1905 and he is the one that infected me with the gardening bug. At times of loss or times of reflection, a garden is a hopeful place and maybe that’s why we plant so many memorial ones. They help us remember that life does go on. My garden this year is low tech too, no wifi or cell phones, just the sounds of insects buzzing, the smell of freshly turned soil, and the warmth of the sun on my back. I like to look for seedlings first poking their heads up through the soil each spring. I’m impatient for that and return to the garden daily after sowing. I know germination and garden growing doesn't happen overnight, but I never fail to find a weed or two that need pulling. Yet the best part of this is finding contentment in the promise of green bean casserole, tomatoes for spaghetti sauce or salsa, and the buttery sweetness fresh corn on the cob that my garden brings, and the promise of life renewed.