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 