The Garden Caretaker
“Die when I may, I want it said of me
by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.”-Abraham Lincoln
My dad is eighty two years
old. You think I’m going to write about the challenges of children taking care
of their aged parents, don’t you? Guess
again, I am writing about my dad! He is one of those tough old guys and
will probably be taking care of me when I’m eighty!
When I came across the
above quote, I immediately thought of him. He loves to garden. He plants
anything he can get his hands on; vegetables, flowers, bushes and trees. No one wants to mow his grass for him because
there are too many things to mow around. So he does it himself.
To get to his vegetable
garden you have to go down a steep hill. Not a little hill; one that goes down
to the river. Needless to say when you go down, you also have to come up. Every
year, he says to me, “you want to see my garden?” I do want to see his garden
and I don’t mind going down the hill to see it, but I think he should install
an escalator to get me back up the hill.
He goes to the garden several times a
day and until a couple of years ago he mowed the hill with a push mower, going
up and down, not across. When I tell him he is going to have a heart attack
someday, going up and down that hill, he tells me he can’t think of a better
way to die. See, I do try to take care of him, he just won’t let me.
His garden is always
perfect; everything is in straight neat rows, absolutely no weeds anywhere in
sight. His
greatest frustration is the deer, the geese and raccoon who roam the river who find
their way to his garden. He has tried everything to keep those varmints out of
his
His
flower gardens are equally perfect. People actually drive or walk by his house
just to see his flowers. No painting in the world has more color than his flower
garden. It makes my back hurt when I see
him working in those flower beds.
When
I was a child he parented and cared for me like he gardens. Diligently and with
great care. He taught me that my life
could be as productive as his gardens if I would allow the seeds of kindness
and goodness and love to grow. He taught me that the weeds of life: anger,
bitterness, jealousy, if allowed to grow would soon take over the garden of my
life.
Probably
the most important thing he taught me was if I did allow the weeds to creep in,
the Master Garden would always be available to get rid of them for me. Without
the Master Gardener the garden of my life would probably be very unproductive.
I
am grateful today that the Master Gardener allowed my dad to be the caretaker
of the garden of my life when I was young. Because of his diligence my life has
been blessed and I hope it reflects his love for me.
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