In the Garden

I don't know where this post came from, but it wants to be written, so here it is.  Sometimes thoughts and images blindside me.  So it was this morning...

On a late summer day in 1968, as they were delivering the bounty of canteloupe from their garden to friends and relatives, my maternal grandparents were in a car accident.  It was an unmarked intersection and my grandpa lost his life when they were hit at the rear side of their Ford Econoline pick-up truck.  The truck careened into a tree and it was then and there that my grandpa met his Lord.  He was ready.

But I wasn't.

He was just 55 years old.  Only a year younger than my own husband.  My grandma was 53, the age I'll be in September.  She wasn't ready to be without him.  Neither were any of us. It was on the eve of my 11th birthday.  I didn't find out that he was killed instantly until the next morning when my dad had the unenviable job of telling me.  On my birthday.

We have a small family.  I'm an only child and my mom only has one sister, so we are all very close.  My grandparents lived just a mile or so away, as the crow flies.  They babysat me every day while my parents both worked until I was about 3½ years old.  Spending that much time on the farm with them created close bonds, beyond the usual grandparent/grandchild relationship.

For a long time after that, I looked at my life in terms of "BGD" and "AGD" - Before Grandpa Died and After Grandpa Died.  In the summer of 1969, Neil Armstrong, a fellow Buckeye, set foot on the moon.  Grandpa didn't get to see that.  There's a lot he didn't get to see, but he lived a good and full life.  He was a loving and honest man, making his living off the land and trying to do good wherever life took him.

I can't hear his voice anymore, and don't remember what it sounds like, but thoughts of him come to me at random times and I can still shed a tear when I think of him and how I wish he were still here.  I know we would have the best conversations.

We do talk, in a way....

His favorite hymn was "In the Garden."

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Yes, perhaps the inspiration for my love of gardening is in some small way a gift from my grandpa.  Maybe not.  But I now know why it was his favorite hymn.  I'm sure he had many a conversation with God while riding the tractor up and down the length of his fields.

God speaks to me when I'm in my garden, too.