For the Things That Grow

Gardening is hard as it demands patience, devotion, and the willingness to get your hands dirty. It asks you to notice what others would walk past, to tend what is hidden beneath soil. It asks to be steady when the weather rages and the wind bends everything crooked. 

The first time I saw his garden, I thought it was abandoned.

It is placed behind the house, where the soil wasn’t even, some patches darker than others and some where the water had settled too long. There were flowers even though not all were in full bloom. Some were still closed and others were already fading into another life.

“It looks… a little wild,” I said, stepping over a patch of bent leaves.

He smiled, brushing dirt off his hands. “Wild? It’s just… been through some storms.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Storms?”

“Yes,” he said, kneeling in the soil as he pulls the weeds carefully, detaching  them away from the fragile roots of tiny sprouts he does not want to harm. He didn’t pull them out all at once, instead, he loosened the soil first. “The wind tore through here last week. It rained so hard it washed away half the soil. Some of these flowers were nearly lost.” He touched a bent stem, straightening it gently. 

There, under the soil, was a small stem I cannot even see unless I already knew it was there, trying to grow in the space it had been given. The weed had curled around it, not yet choking it, but close enough. “See this one? It’s been buried under weeds since the storm.” He untangled them slowly, easing the weed away without damaging the smaller plant, making sure nothing tore in the process. Only when the stem stood on its own did he remove what didn’t belong. “You have to be careful.”

His hands are scratched, dust under his nails, and the sun warms his back as he leans over the soil. He watered next, adjusting the flow with his fingers, when it darkens too quickly, he stops and when it barely changes, he waits for a while and waterz  again.

“Doesn’t it frustrate you? All this work just to have the weather tear it apart again?” I asked.

He glanced at me, “It takes as long as it needs to.” Then he leaned closer to a wilted flower. “Some things don’t survive and that’s okay, what survives is what's worth everything.”

He waits longer than he wants to, holding the seedlings between his fingers as if they might break at the slightest pressure, those fragile things with no voice of their own. Some life grows slowly beneath layers of soil, and he waits. He waits, patient as the earth itself, until the root has been stabled, the sprout dares to rise, and the flowers bloom.

There are leaves that wilt despite his care, stems that bend too far and reach the point of no return. There are mornings when the earth feels stubborn as it presses back against all the effort he gives, but he never abandons it. He loosens the soil, brushes away what has died in order to make space for something else to take its place.

Most people do not have the time for this. Most people walk past the garden, seeing only the surface where the flowers that have already survived but never noticing the labor that made them bloom. He stayed for everything else. Oh, how I wish I was a garden too.