An Empty Chair

originally posted 
June 23, 2010

My mom once told me that she felt closest to God when she gardened. I suppose her life was like a garden, I suppose all our lives are. It all starts out fresh and new with all hope and possibilities then is shaped by choices and stones from the path. We spend so much time planning and shaping in hopes of perfection, then end up pulling, and routing out weed after weed. Then winter comes.
Indeed, life is like a garden.
I remember her so well sitting on the hill in the backyard. I remember her hosing down plant bed after plant bed or filling the ponds, all the while sitting in her lawn chair singing softly to herself. I know that her gardens somehow still miss her as much as I do.
Both my parents gardened out of love. It was not so much about the house with them; it was about the land, the trees and the greenery. Even inside the house, rows of cactus and trees, surrounded by hanging plants and ivy, filled the front room throughout the year.

We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.

My Mom loved roses. Her rose garden, along the driveway, was simply lovely. With pink and purple and many colors, calling to hummingbird and butterfly and dragonfly alike, the scent of it rising on the warm spring breeze. 

The spring has come and almost gone and the summer arrived, with its hazy days and warm evenings; the sky of night, so clear, you can reach out to touch the stars. All the gardens are in bloom again and the trees are waving like friendly folk, when the wind hits them just right. I know that soon will come autumn, and then the cold and dank of winter. When spring arrives again next year, the greenery will grow and the flowers will return. Soft butterflies will soar above the ponds and into the sundrenched flower beds and, like life, some gardens will go on and some with be tethered.

I imagine that my mind will always journey back to my Mother, caring for her garden as she did for her children, thorns and all. I will never forget and have many promises to keep. In the distance, almost up on to the top of the hill, sits a place for her, but it will only ever be an empty chair.