I've probably heard that song a hundred times - maybe more. An old-fashioned little hymn, much like the rest of the songs in the Baptist Hymnal, it fits with the 'style' of my church, linking the old with the new. As a child I heard my dad play it on his piano - and he played it because his dad did. I've even heard it from Elvis Presley in his Gospel Collection CD's. I've heard that song, I easily recognize it. But I've never paid attention to it, really 'listened' to the words until very recently.....
When I moved into this house four years ago, Mom took one look at the back yard and said "This would be a great place for a garden!" Mom was still grieving from the loss of her son two years earlier and it was rare for her to get excited about much. So right away I said "Well let's do it!" That was in February - and by March half the back yard was plowed up and the vegetable garden was in the ground. She was just as pleased as she could be. She liked digging in the soil and she said she loved getting her hands dirty. She said it reminded her of her mom. I didn't get the dirt part and really tending to the garden, I thought, was just too hard on the back. But she loved it - and it made her happy. I think that garden helped her with her grief.
I was out of work for a couple months that Spring recovering from surgery, so she and I used that time to talk all things Gardening, Canning, Miracle Grow, Weeding, etc. She wanted me to know how to do all that stuff. And I halfway paid attention. What I was mostly glad about was all the time that mom and I had to spend together. She spent lots of nights here, getting up early in the morning, making coffee and heading out in the yard. She would sit under the carport and "watch my garden grow", she said. She let Matthew help her and she made sure to pay extra attention to anything he planted. She made such a fuss over him when his veggies started to grow! She just loved that little garden. She's had one out in my back yard every year since. And now, after all these years and thanks to finally paying close attention to the words of Charles A. Miles precious little song "In The Garden", I think I know why she loved it so much.
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. 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.
I imagine now that mom was out in her garden talking to God. It was where she felt the most comfortable. It was quiet and she could hear Him as she weeded, watered, fussed over her little patch of ground. She probably thought fondly of her sisters and her mom cooking their own vegetables and canning food to feed our families. She probably remembered the gardens of her past. She was in His presence there, she felt Him as they "tarried there" together in her little garden.
One of the last conversations mom and I had before we went to the hospital was about her garden. Springtime came early this year - it was early March and it was already hot outside. That kind of weather, even in her sickness, would wake her inner gardner. She had been sick for awhile, no energy to do anything. She was resting in Matthew's bed one afternoon and said, "The thing I'm most upset about is that I can't get out in my garden. I just don't think I can do it this year".
"Oh Mom", I said. "Don't you worry about it. I'll get Joe over to plow and I'll plant the garden. I'll have it in the ground before Good Friday", I continued. "And when you get to feeling better it'll be there for you to tend to".
Now, if there's a person in the world who knows me, it's my mom. Just the thoughts of me getting a whole garden actually up and running was silly. She didn't laugh out loud at my offer but I'm sure she "yea, right-ed" quietly! But I meant what I said. I didn't know how but I figured I could at least get it started. And I would always have her to ask.
Mom got sicker still and a few days later we landed at the hospital. About 24 hours into our two-week stay I started hearing things like "Cancer", "Nothing we can do", "Not much longer". Mom was so sick by then that she wasn't able to really talk with me anymore. But I knew our time together was growing shorter by the day so I talked to her about everything I knew she loved. We talked a lot about her garden. I reminded her that I was going to get it going and when she got better I was going to need her help. I asked her about different kinds of tomatoes, should we plant okra and what did she think about no Zucchini this year. I talked about canning, snapping green beans and how to pickle beets. She responded with faint sounds, answering my questions as best she could. We spent several long nights together reminiscing - I talked, mom listened. I talked about our big garden up in Lincolnton and how they worked us kids to death out in the sweltering sun during the time before sun-screen. We talked about Maw turning potatoes out of the ground and Myrtle's white pickles and eating biscuits and butter off of old metal pie tins and drinking water from the spigot on the side of the well. Miles of green beans, shucking corn on the back of daddy's 54 Chevy Pick-Up and that old, family recipe soup mix. That time the pressure canner blew up at Lynn's house and there were green beans on the ceiling. Planting "under the signs" and dad wondering if a Pepsi sign would do.
The more I talked the more I started to realize that some of my mom's most favorite things, her most fond memories revolved around a garden. Suddenly her garden in my back yard became my mission. I didn't know how I would do it but I knew that her garden would have to become a reality this spring. I knew that she wasn't going to get better and I would be digging in the dirt on my own but I just had to do it. I started to think I could hold on to a little of her if I could just get her garden to grow. She would somehow still be with me if I could get her Zinnias to come back, grow some tomatoes, pick some squash. It was important to her, that garden, so it was urgently important to me. I even prayed about it, "Lord, help me be the kind of gardener my mom would be proud of, help me grow something and not kill it - and help me know how much water to put on the tomatoes..."
I had been at the hospital with mom for the last 14 days of her life. During that time I was blessed to have such a wonderful church family, taking care of my 'stuff' while I was gone. My mail, my cats, my grass, etc. I wasn't worried about a thing. Someone came over and planted my empty flower pots (exactly what mom would have done!) with Petunias! And someone even weeded the bed in front of my house - over grown with shaggy bushes and random things growing out of control. Church family means way more than casseroles!
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.
Mom died last Saturday afternoon. It was late when I finally got home that night. It was dark but I could see the Wave Petunias in my planter as I walked up the front steps. I noticed a little concrete statue of hands with a Bible Verse chiseled on the base. There was a beautiful Geranium spilling over the side of a new pot that someone left on my porch. It was a nice climb up my steps as I made my way into the house. My church family was so thoughtful. I was getting ready for bed when out the bathroom window something caught my eye. Something was in mom's garden. I ran out the back door, down the stairs and into the backyard. The garden was there! It was plowed, there were plants in it, tomato stakes and a sprinkler. Mother's garden was planted and growing - and I stood in the middle of it and cried. I sat in a chair in my backyard in the middle of that night and "watched my garden grow". And I thought fondly of my mom and our gardens of the past and I talked to God.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment