A few week ago, when I got back to New Jersey after my stay in California, I took a walk at Colonial Park and saw a forsythia just starting to bloom. That’s an early bloom; the first of the season. My first thought was “I’ll tell dad.” Then I remembered that he’s not taking my calls these days and, honestly, it sucked. To have the start of Spring without my dad around to discuss gardens, seedlings, and all things turning green has been hard.
I learned to love gardens and plants from him and I am reminded that in these growing things is the comfort I need. Plants grow and then fade and die. In some cases, that happens in a year. In others, a growing thing (looking at you, redwoods), can last for ages, well past the life of one human. There are lessons in that, of course. Human life is fragile and short when measured against historical time. What can endure is the mark we make on this world and the people around us.
In that respect, my dad has the edge. For his kind heart, he was known and admired by so many people. He adored his grandsons beyond a reason and rationality and they knew it and loved him back. He was fiercely loved by the rest of us as well. And his gardening lives on, in the peach trees he ordered in December, delivered from his favorite nursery a few days after he died. In the lemon trees he planted in all of his yards; in the daffodils I saw blooming around his house and all the places he lived in Clovis; in the irises that grow in my backyard; bulbs that came from his grandmother’s garden.
Days and then years will come and go. But Spring will always bring new growth. In that fresh green, I will look for my gardener dad and the joy his plants brought him. I know I’ll find him there.
