rebirth after death

Last spring after my paternal grandparents died, my co-workers took a collection amongst themselves and gave me a gift card to a local nursery. I bought four fruit trees - one for each grandparent, 3 of whom are were now dead. After some time, it was clear that the apple trees had some kind of blight. (below)

The peach trees were also suffering, (above) though not as bad.

I didn't know if any of them would survive.

Meanwhile, in fall, I set out bulbs that me and those same co-workers "procured" from the University gardner.

This spring is shaping up to be quite nice here at The Lodge. :-)

Spring

I started my day walking into work with my grandmother.

Every spring morning that is sunny and crisp with patches of dew kissed daffodils here and there, is a morning I get to walk with my grandmother. It may only be as long as it takes me to walk from the car to the office but, in that time, I'm a child again and we outside in her garden or walking to town or hanging out laundry or some other chore. But always I am by her side again and we are enjoying the smell of wet new grass.

I ended the day with my grandfather, her husband. I've never filled my mower's gas tank or smelled gas anywhere else that I didn't think of him. So, as I mowed my spring crop of wild onions, he sat under the pine tree in a plastic lawn chair whittling his cedar stick and spitting tobacco juice to his left. Every once in a while I caught him smiling at me, especially as I mowed around the peach tree I planted in his honor last year.

She will be 98 in September 2010. He died in 1998 when he was 88. I couldn't have asked for a better day.