The Garden

It was just a week ago when I went to a hospital room and held my grandmother's weakened hand.  Her palm was still warm, and even as she struggled to make herself comfortable, she maintained that circle inside my fingers.  It was a surreal, almost too vivid blurry moment.   But even so, who knows what to say?  I got up and leaned over the foot of her bed and thanked her for telling me stories and said I hoped I could be as good a storyteller.  

This morning I was blessed to tell a part of the story.  I shared the task with three other poets of my family.  But this is something of which I am particularly proud and something I wish to share.  Because she was one fantastic lady.

When I was little, getting out of the back of my parents’ car in the driveway of Mt. Pleasant Ave. was like stepping into Technicolor Oz.  A tapestry of colors on the bank of the Land of Green Ginger signaled the magical visit that was inevitable on a day at Ma and Bubby’s.  There was more Oz throughout the yard.  Gladiolas, black-eyed susans, lilacs, and sprawling day lilies blanketed patches of ground on the perimeter of the garage, along the slopes of the cellar exit, and underneath the sun porch.  

The most beautiful garden, however, is not rooted in the earth outside the house on Mt. Pleasant Ave.  It is the one she planted, watered, and cared for within its walls.  Her – our - family.

Grammie planted our feet on the ground with her love, the love that she shared with her husband, and her love of this world and its wonder.  She created a home that was always warm – maybe in the literal sense a little too warm – but a place of comfort where each one of us felt the nurture to push ourselves to the sky.

She fed us.  With soup and shells, macaroni and cheese, or an omnipresent tin of some sinfully delicious baked good.   

She watered us – so much that several of us have an overwhelming need for water therapy and relish the activity of washing dishes.  But there is also that special tea that requires a certain pot to brew.  Or for a little extra kick – the bottle of bourbon kept alongside the towels and toilet cleaner.

She talked to us.  About our lives, no matter how ordinary or different or mundane or weird.  She told us how her father made her and John walk all over Worcester to visit museums and parks. How this young man, Vinny, stopped her when she was walking down the street and gave her a ride home.  How she slept on the floor at the foot of her children’s beds because she knew she would get more sleep there.  She told us stories of each other as we spread out across different regions of this country, connecting us all through her.  

She was and is our sunshine.  We reach to make ourselves taller, open ourselves up, and become better people because of her warmth.  

Just as many of us have our own gardens populated with flowers from Mt. Pleasant Ave., we all have her spirit and go out to be that food, water, and sun for other gardens.  We are a family of educators, health care professionals, architects, artists, mothers, fathers, and leaders.  And while maybe the Oz of my childhood has a different shape and hue now, I imagine we will all continue to plant this world with Mary Brennan’s color.