Imagine a Garden

Imagine a Garden

When I was a little boy our garden was a jungle. Father worked very hard to try and make it a paradise for us. He told us that there were going to be water features, greens to play ball, a labyrinth, a big swing and beautiful flowers all year around. We enjoyed listening to Father dreaming it all out loud for us. And, although we quite liked the jungle as it was, we looked forward to the day when this dream of his would become a reality. Our father had responsibilities away from us and our garden, and as the garden was large and under siege from all sides by thorny brambles and stinging nettles, the passing time often undid a an entire season of his work in his periods absence. So we soon lost faith in the realisation of his dream.

Many a summer we blissfully played in our jungle, oblivious to our dad doing his thing with spades and shovels, clippers and sheers.

But there was one summer I remember in particular. It was the year I turned eight. There was a good sized lawn in front of the house. I’d say it had been there for a couple of years by then. My little brother was five and my sister must have been nine or ten. The sun never stopped shining that year and Mum kept us in homemade lemonades.

I was amazed! Most of the trees that father had planted all those years ago had actually grown and survived despite the fact that they had not been left in peace by all the weeds, the ivy and the brambles. That is when I realised how serious he was and that nothing was going to stop him from making the dream of our garden come true.

Having cleared away the worst of the weeds and creepers away from the young trees he started to advance into the thicket. This particular area of the thicket had not previously suffered any of Dad’s attacks. And it appeared to be every bit as determined to remain wild, as dad was to tame it. It had in its favour the fact that, for the most part, it was twice my father’s height. Also it had a defence system of razor sharp thorns, and roots firmly buried in the stony ground. But Dad went in and I helped. Together we won the battle. I was allowed to use real tools and I didn’t cry when the nettles gave me swollen, itchy bracelets.

While my brave part of the adventure lasted perhaps a couple of hours on several occasions, Dad gave it what he had and pretty much spent that whole summer in merry battle against the elements of the wilderness. One of the big roots I remember him digging up was just about where the apple and the cherry trees are standing today. This root was almost as big as a grown man. It had many arms with which it was holding onto the ground. All the while Dad made me feel that he couldn’t have done it without me. When the truth is that he went out of his way to make sure I was pulling the thing at the right time and in the right direction, just so that I could share in his excitement and victory.

It was not until many years later that I acquired a new taste for some more gardening adventures myself. All the tough jobs had long been done by then, and my father was getting too old and frail to do the maintenance by himself. But he had really given his vision shape and form. The garden is now everything that he had said it would be and more. The latest addition being a large meditation labyrinth.

The other day I found myself bragging to my ten year old son, that my father and I together pulled weeds out of that garden the size of dinosaur bones. Then I turned around, aware that his grandad was listening. His eyes were sparkling. The face I saw was one of the happiest I ever saw on him, and Dad never was an unhappy man.