Grief and Gardening
I don’t know how to write a blog. I don’t really know how to write anything these days besides journal entries about my feelings, to do lists, or text messages. But I DO know grief. I know loss. I know sadness. I also know hope. Healing. Growth. These things go together in the messiest and most beautiful way.
My dad was undeniably my favorite person. He was the most present father I’ve ever encountered, constantly showering me with love and attention, always teaching me things and forever instilling his dry sense of humor in me throughout my whole life. (One of his best friends still thinks it’s incredible how much talking to me feels like talking to my dad, because we make the same types of jokes, down to the timing.) So if any of you ever wondered where I got this offbeat, goofy, slightly inappropriate sense of humor, you can thank Jim Wild.
Today marks five years since my dad died. There. I wrote it. I literally don’t know what else to say anymore. I’ve tried not to talk about this as far as Indigo Moon is concerned (via social media or emails). I didn’t know if it would seem inappropriate or like I was getting too personal. However, with individual clients, I have absolutely talked about this. In fact, some of you were my clients before my dad died, and were my clients while I was going through losing him, and are still my clients. We have most definitely talked about it. And to those clients, I am so indescribably grateful for you. Thank you for caring, and for understanding, and for being patient with me while I went through the hardest time of my life.
Some people have told me I should never talk to clients about personal things. I agree to some extent, and to some extent I don’t. Because this is life. Part of the beauty of life and of healing is sharing our experiences with others, and knowing we aren’t alone, and getting to be open, honest and authentic. For our bodies and our hearts to heal, we have to be honest about what is hurting us. When I opened up to clients about losing my dad, so many of them opened up in return. I started hearing about the grief and loss that so many people I cared about were dealing with. And we were able to understand one another in a way that sometimes we don’t always get from people who haven’t been through the specific pain that we’ve been through. THAT is healing. When someone says, “I’ve been through that, I know exactly what you’re talking about”… that makes us feel lighter, and less alone.
Lately I’ve gotten into the habit of looking for pretty things to take a picture of on my daily walks with my dogs. This morning as I was trying to capture the best angle of a neighbor’s daisies, he came out to talk to me about them. “You like the Blackfoot daisies??” he asked. I enthusiastically said yes, then forced him to tell me the exact names of every other flower he had in his garden. That led to him giving me a tour of his utterly magical backyard. He’d bought his house five years ago, and there was nothing but one little stick of a peach tree back there. What he’s created since he moved in felt exactly like walking into The Secret Garden. He was delighted to hear that, and said that was EXACTLY what he was going for- that and Miss Honey’s garden from Matilda.
He said he hasn’t even watered his yard all summer, since all the plants are native. The joy that his garden brought him (and me) was palpable. He moved into a place that had nothing, and he created something so healthy and vibrant and beautiful. This is what gardening does. This is also what grieving does. Before my dad died, he had started his own garden in our family backyard. After getting diagnosed with a chronic illness, he started gardening as a way to stay relaxed, get some exercise and fresh air, and it was clear it was becoming a hobby he genuinely enjoyed. He’d often go outside just to check on his plants, and every time I came to visit he’d walk me through his garden and show me every single thing he had growing. His pride and satisfaction was apparent, and his garden was thriving and beautiful.
After he died, part of me died as well. A huge part of me died. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it actually. But I stayed alive, thanks to my mom, and my loving boyfriend at the time, and my incredible friends. I slowly but surely started doing a little bit more over time, but never tried to force myself to heal faster. I knew that wouldn’t work. I felt my feelings, and did the next right thing. Again and again. I also started getting plants. The plants were making me happy. The plants gave me something to focus on. Something to tend to, pay attention to, and nurture. Also I saw everyone around me enjoyed my plants. Loved ones and neighbors would comment on my yard, or my houseplants, and clients at work would exchange plant tips and propagated plants with me constantly.
Gardening, whether it’s an entire yard, a container garden, or a few little pots in your kitchen, is a lesson in hope, patience and joy. Without hope, I don’t think anyone would ever try to grow anything. We plant seeds and nurture tiny little sprouts in hopes that they will grow into something bigger. We know not everything we plant will grow and thrive, but hopefully something will. And that hope keeps us going. When something DOES start growing we get excited, even at the smallest little hint of green, or the teeniest little bud, yet we still have to be patient, because there’s still so much more growth to come. A huge tree won’t pop up over night, nor will the tomatoes be growing and ripe the day after we plant them. Yet we wait. And finally, we feel immense joy when we get to see our flowers bloom, get to share our strawberries with our friends, or lie on our porch swing surrounded by enormous monsteras.
These feelings of hope, patience and joy all come as we are processing our grief as well. We can hope for better days, and better spirits. We can have hope that if we just exercise a little bit, go meet up with one friend that week, or start doing therapy, we will eventually feel better one day. We can patiently persist at doing these things, knowing that good things do take time. One day, before we know it, we feel a little joy. We find ourselves laughing harder than we had in months. We realize how grateful we are to have known that special person or animal and reminiscing about cherished moments with them. We start to see color in the world around us again. These things will happen. We just have to keep nurturing ourselves.
