She found me crumpled on the ground crying in a small corner of my now large vegetable garden. I tried to answer her calm and gentle questions, but only primal sounds seem to come out of my mouth. She sat next to me and held my hand—both of us shaded from the late July sun by the now tall corn stalks—until I was able to talk. “They told me to prepare for a full hysterectomy. My condition has gotten worse. All those surgeries and now it’s come to this. I will never have children.” It was 1977 and I was twenty seven years old. When we bought our very first home in a small town in Maryland four years earlier, our neighbor, Mrs. Blake, who was probably in her seventies at that point, had come to visit and brought with her a blueberry pie. “Made this today,” she said proudly as I almost inhaled the juicy, sweet goodness of it, “First thing this morning I picked those berries and then made the pie.” All of this was very new to me. My family had seldom lived anywhere but cities and I had never really learned how to grow anything as an adult—markets held all we might need. I told her this and she laughed delightedly, “Well now you have about a quarter acre right there in your backyard, so I can teach you how to start a garden if you want.” I was intrigued.
I settled into my new teaching job and into my new home. A few months later during winter break, I had one of my surgeries. My second. Recuperation was long and painful. Mrs. Blake visited me every few days throughout January and into February with books and catalogs about vegetable gardening. Her enthusiasm for the redness of tomato skins (“Can’t beat a beefsteak tomato!”) and plumpness of watermelon (“Harmony is the best one. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”) was infectious. She taught me about soil (“This is what friable soil feels like—you can squeeze it like this and it clumps up, but it doesn’t stay that way—it can crumble easily—gives seeds comfort and room to push out and grow.”) and composting (“Put all your food scraps in a bin like this…”) and mulching (“Gotta keep delicate roots cool and protected while they grow.”). By March I was healed, back at work, and itching to plow my backyard to create a garden. I had learned about cold weather crops, overplanting, spacing, rotating, fertilizing, and weeding. That first and then second year of my garden was a daily lesson in patience, understanding, and delights. When I pulled my first radish out of the ground (planted so that as they were harvested the carrot seeds would now have a place to grow into), a pink, magenta, white miracle, I raced to Mrs. Blake’s house so we could salt it and share it together. She taught me about broccoli collars (“Don’t use that awful spray to kill the bugs. Just make it so they can’t climb up the plant.”), when to thin crops, and when to give up on a plant (“It didn’t want to grow there. Maybe it just knew it was better suited to be mulch and help out that way.”). And now, the garden’s third year had been plentiful with ripe warm vegetables as daily gifts for my table. But I was crumbling. “This means I’m barren, Mrs. Blake. I don’t know how I can stand it,” I blurted out that day in my garden. “I’ll have to have another surgery—probably next year—and they will have to take everything out.” She said nothing but helped me up to my feet and walked inside with me. I sat at my kitchen table while she made us some tea and added a bit of mint she quickly snipped from just outside my back door. Finally, she spoke: “Seems to me that every single plant has its own habits. All of them like certain conditions and grow differently. Look at what you created out there,” she said as she led me to the big window, “See all of that? It wasn’t there a few years ago—just a big patch of grass out there. Now there is so much life and nourishment. You did that. You learned and worked and made it happen. Why, remember last year when you had so much abundance that you went down to the local help center and gave people in need extra food? And this year you planted even more so you could do that again?” I nodded, not sure of what point she was making. She continued, pointing to my belly, “It seems to me that maybe you can’t grow babies in there,” and now she pointed to my heart, “but you grow an awful lot in there. Nurture that. Feed that. Look inside yourself for the strength and outside yourself for what you can grow in the world. Put into this world what this world needs.” With that she hugged me and left my alone with my thoughts. The following year we moved hundreds of miles across the state. In my new home I started a garden again and sent Mrs. Blake weekly pictures. After my hysterectomy she called me daily and we discussed plants and the new difficult clay soil I was struggling with. Very shortly after my husband and I adopted our miracle of a four-month old daughter we drove the three-hours back to our old hometown to visit Mrs. Blake. Her husband greeted us at the door almost tearfully and told us that her heart was not doing well. “Doctors are not hopeful. They think she won’t make it to the spring. She’s totally bedridden now.” As I walked toward her bedroom, I braced myself for a sad, downcast Mrs. Blake, but I was wrong. I put the baby on the bed right next to her, and as I gave her a long hug I saw a pile of partially opened garden catalogs on her nightstand. “doing some light reading there?” I chuckled. She answered laughing, “Nothing cheers up a dreary early March day like some bright tomato pictures. I think you should plant this variety in your area,” she said pointing to a page she had dog-eared, “It does well in clay soil.” And then continued, “I don’t think I’ll make it to planting again. But I know you will. You’ll grow all sorts of fine food and beautiful herbs. Be sure to remember about the corn silk turning to brown before you go picking those ears, OK? I won’t be around to remind you.” I struggled to hold back tears. She then asked me about my new teaching position, and the work I was beginning on my PhD, and marveled at the baby’s giggles and gurgles and soft blond hair. She asked me to remind her of my daughter’s name. “Heather,” I said, “It’s such a beautiful and hardy and useful flower, isn’t it?” She held my daughter in a soft embrace. “Oh, my,” she said to me, with a twinkle in her eyes, “You grow all sorts of things so very well.” The sad call came a few months later as I was out in the spring garden cutting the first tender spinach leaves with Heather sitting beside me, her little hands grabbing at the moist dirt—opening and closing her fists, delightedly squishing the cool friable earth between her fingers, and laughing at the embrace of the warm sunshine. Comments are closed.
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