Nana Rose

My Nana Rose was desert born and bred and when she moved to the city with her husband the judge and her four daughters she took her love of gardening with her. Her new home ground must have seemed like paradise to her, no more alkali soil, ample water.

They lived in the swank part of town, but Rose always wore her apron and sometimes was mistaken by her neighbors for the housekeeper. She spent hours in her garden with her helper Pete. I can still see the two of them on their knees tucking bedding plants under the pyracantha. Her front yard was filled with flowers but down in back at the end of a stone stairway, tucked in the weeds she cultivated potatoes. So the rich neighbors wouldn’t see.

I never met my neighbor up the road and don’t know her name, but felt a kinship. Sometimes when she was out there with her mini-yellow wheelbarrow I wanted to stop, but didn’t. I regret that now. She surrounded her white cottage with flowers, and knew instinctively I imagined, where to put the hyacinth, in spring near the daffodils. In summer the reflecting ball in her north-facing flower bed glistened to me on my way to the post office. She had a smoke tree in the front yard and some locoweed, a nod to her days spent horseback with the cattle.

My Nana and the neighbor are both gone now. Their loving horticultural hands replaced with the perceived necessities of life, manicured antiseptic yards or fenced for children.

I look at my garden, emerging from winter and a cold spring, a paradox of promise as Ray and I negotiate the path to passing. Over the last two weeks we’ve had to tell health providers we care about and who care about us that Ray’s cancer is back and he is not going to seek treatment. Each time it has been wrenching to see the look on their faces, and then the unwavering support. For us it’s like rehearsing for a spring that will never come.

But yet, knowing these caring people are there for us makes it easier to plant and water and plan for our harvest which this year ironically promises bounty; the fruit trees are nurturing apricots, plums and peaches, the corn and squash are taller and bushier every day. Yesterday I threw a net over the strawberries and winked at the relic sagebrush in our backyard.