To see something live - my first garden

Several years ago before I was married and before I had a child, I started a garden from scratch. I had never so much as picked up a shovel before, and yet one spring day, I hoisted a pick axe over my shoulder and began tearing up a neglected patch of weeds in my parents' backyard. I had no idea what I was doing, but at the time, I didn't care. I just knew that I needed to erase that ugly, cracked, and choking piece of earth and replace it with something vibrant, beautiful, and alive. I needed to see something live.

I am blessed to work in healthcare. I am invited into some of the most intimate moments of peoples' lives in my efforts to help them achieve physical healing. I consider this an astounding and indescribable privilege. But in treating the ill, one must also eventually encounter death. In my particular specialty, we encounter death quite frequently. Inevitable as it is and experienced as one might be in facing it, death nevertheless always carries with it a profound emotional and psychological burden. At twenty-seven years old, I had encountered more death than most people do in an entire lifetime, and it had begun to weigh heavily on my heart. At the time, I was not married. I had no children. My job was my entire life. And so, it seemed, death was also my entire life. For once, I simply needed to see something live.

On a rare day off one March morning, I drove over to my parents' home (I lived in a small apartment in the next town over) and asked them if they would mind whether I planted a garden in their backyard. Though somewhat confused, they certainly didn't mind. And so, armed with nothing more than a stubborn motivation I could not yet even define, I rooted around in their garage for some tools, and quickly went to work. Over the course of several months, I gradually tore up a bare and lifeless patch of earth, and one by one replaced weeds with flowers and shrubs. I had no knowledge of how to design a garden. I had no experience with amending soil and nurturing plants. I had only a vague yet fervent desire - to create a garden that would always reflect hope and life, even in the darkest and coldest days of winter. I wanted desperately always to see something live.

Each day that I returned to digging in the soil was another day I labored on in a love for life which I had nearly forgotten. The deeply cool scent of fresh earth, the warm tickle of sun on my shoulders, the faint buzz of a honey bee perched on a nearby flower, daily reminding me that I was alive. Reminding me that life, though small and imperfect, is nonetheless beautiful and worth celebrating. Life. In my tiny little garden. Life quietly humming all around.

Finally, one day after several months of work, I stepped back, wiped my brow, and simply breathed it all in. Somehow in what was once a forgotten clump of dying weeds, I now saw life. A vibrant and beautiful garden. Alive.

And I thanked God. For the gift of life. For the gift of such small and almost imperceptible moments. And for finally allowing me to see something live.

I have gardened since.