The garden

 

When I arrived to visit dad, I found him walking around the dining tables using one of the chairs as his walker.  I stood there and watched him for a moment and then he looked up and saw me.  He smiled and said “Hey good lookin!”  He had just finished up his dinner and said he was helping “pick up all the boxes”.  Boxes of what, I did not ask but he was definitely on a mission.  One of the sweet nurses asked him who I was and he responded that I was his great granddaughter.  I just smiled.  She told dad to go sit down and visit with me and he insisted that he had work to do and needed to get the boxes in order.  She told him that she would take care of it and he could leave.  I winked at her and said “Dad, she is giving you the night off,” and dad responded with “Well, hot damn!” 

 

I gave dad his walker and asked him if we could sit down.  He lead me straight to the door to the outdoor garden.  As we entered the garden, he said he was going to take the truck and run to the bank.  He said he had to get some money out.  I told him we could go to the bank later but I wanted to sit for a while.  It was pouring down rain but there is an awning over the rocking chairs, so we picked 2 chairs and sat down. 

 

It is a very pretty, well kept garden area that is a perfect and quite place to sit.  There are shrubs, flower bushes, tomato plants, and humming bird feeders.  If you look, you will find a few hidden peacocks  amongst the shrubs as well as beaded lanyards( I assume they were made by some of the sweet souls who live here) draped over the iron flag holders.  Dad was very talkative this evening.  He talked a lot about farming.  How my brother is now a farmer and not too sure how to use the big equipment.  He talked about an addition he was putting on the side of his house and even pointed to the wall and said “that is where it will be.”  He asked me if I saw the cat that had just walked by and the bat flying through the air.  We talked about how pretty the garden was and he informed me that my mom has been really working hard at keeping it nice.  He asked me what I planned to do with all of those potatoes and pointed to a path of rocks in the garden.  I told him I was going to fix him some fried potatoes.  He said he really wanted to get to the bank and something about giving mom $1000.00 and she can do whatever she would like with it.  In between, he would ask where mom was.  I told her she was at work, napping, or at the store.  All which he was fine with.  He mentioned that mom was “looking hot! “and that he loved her. I reminded him that she loves him too.  Without even taking a breath he said he was going to can all of those tomatoes growing in the distance.  And then dad smacked my leg (in a playful way) and said, “Thank you for being my daughter.”  I will never forget these words.  It was so real and sincere and so out of context of everything we had been talking about the past hour.  But that one sentence will stay with me forever.  Silver lining.  I told dad thank you for being my dad, and we sat there for a moment in silence.  I looked away because I didn’t want him to see me crying.  But when I looked back towards him he was sound asleep. 

 

I watched my dad sleep, prayed, and remembered.  Remembered watching my dad in his garden over the years, and just how much pride he took in that garden.  I wish my dad was still tilling the weeds and watering the corn that would grow so tall.  I wish I could go over to his house and smell the stench of horseradish  after a day of picking.  I wish I  could sit on the back deck and eat stalks of rhubarb with him.  But life took a different turn, and now I am sitting in a garden with my dad that he didn’t plant, one that he didn’t nurture and make beautiful.  And I start to feel sorry for myself and then I remember him thanking me for being his daughter and I smile.  New garden, new memory.  I’ll take it.