The Secret of the Garden
I felt a pang of tenderness when I glanced down at the floor in front of my mother’s bureau the other day. Neatly, side by side, were a pair of Wellington-like rubber boots in the hottest of hot pink. Bright and shiny, they looked ready for a pair of feet to jump right into them. When I asked my mother about them, as she has had some issues with walking recently, she told me she was planning to wear them when she begins work on her yard again this spring. She is 82.
All her life, my mother’s motto has been “Don’t look back…don’t look back”. I realized long ago that she has no use for talking about her growing-up-years or what Boston looked like in the 40’s, or what she remembers about the war. My mother’s eyes are always focused on what’s going on now, what people are talking about…what they’re wearing, doing, thinking. No rearview mirror for her. Don’t look back…don’t look back…
I love history and the past. It fuels much of my imagination and much of my writing. But the one thing my mother and I do have in common is our love for a pretty homelife. I’m so grateful that I inherited her decorator’s eye for placement. We can shuffle a collection of stuff on the fireplace mantle and turn it into a furniture showroom piece. And Mom and I both love soft colors in our homes such as celery green and warm peach.
Our modest houses are filled with all the lovely things we love including plants, which are perfect for decorating on a shoestring (so says She). Mom loves having live and growing things about and so my gifts to her are often orchids, lilies, and for Mother’s Day, hanging baskets of lobelia and trailing sweet peas. Some of my favorite excursions with Mom have been to garden centers for fruits, the first native tomatoes of the season, plants….and most especially, flowers. But she also thinks nothing of snipping something from the side of the road to root in a clear glass of water until tiny tan roots start floating like tadpoles at the bottom. I’m convinced that if Mom had just a dollar left, she would spend it on a potted English Ivy to fetchingly perch on her kitchen windowsill.
It isn’t surprising that a woman who always looks ahead in life would find friends among plants and flowers. Another woman who understood the parallels between gardening and life was Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of the powerful children’s book of redemption, The Secret Garden. And is it any wonder that I just remembered Burnett’s most famous observation about gardening when I thought of my mother’s shiny new boots this week? “As long as you have a garden, you have a future, and as long as you have a future, you are alive“.
I would add too, that as long as you have a living, breathing plant, you have hope. And that’s the real secret of the garden.
10 Comments
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Ann
God bless you Mother! The Secret Garden is my all time favorite book…watched the 1949 movie last night and listened to the Broadway show soundtrack in the car today. "Where you plant a rose, a thistle may not grow!" Seems like you mom has always known this….
Donna Macdonald
Thank you Ann. I will have to see the 1949 version. The soundtrack is lovely and so moving.
Karen
What a lovely, timely reminder for all of us who are tempted to spend our time thinking our best years are behind us! Thank you for sharing this, Donna! And kisses to your mom! XO
Donna Macdonald
Yes! Thank you Karen.