I knew something had changed when I drove up. The unkempt garden signaled a passing.
The sorrow was unmistakable in the moss and web-covered eaves,
encroaching weeds,
and empty chairs where once everyone gathered.
For years, the eclectic garden by the ocean was shaped and tended by one of the two innkeepers.
I learned that he had passed last spring. The grief was profound; the daily tasks too much – and the garden fell into disrepair.
If our stay was longer, I would have asked for the tools to restore some semblance of order – as a tribute to the gardener who kept it so well.
I think about what will become of our beautiful Memorial Garden someday when I am gone.
I know that it is the cycle of life for nature to reclaim what is rightfully hers.
Whatever we carve out of this earth is only temporary.
Nature was here long before us – and will, hopefully, long survive us.
But a garden carries the souls, I think, of those devoted to it.
From dust it is born –
to dust, it is someday returned.
Gardens For Goldens 
Sad, and also beautiful. Cycle of life, ours and the gardens.
The cycle of life can seem so normally perfect and beautiful as a concept but never fails to make me sad when hit with the reality of it.
I’m with you on that, David.
What once was, is no more. So sad to see something that was so beautiful, gone.
An emotional piece on what is always a somber day. It was painful for my father to leave our garden behind when we moved here from Canada. He built it from scratch, and in my memories it was a thing of perfection. I suppose once we’re gone we won’t know what becomes of the things we nurtured, including gardens, animals and children. Like you, I would have wanted to help restore his garden as well.
Oh, I hope we find a way to live among the things we loved – I want to believe that.
Poignant piece.