Aggie

If we're very lucky, each of us has an Aggie - that special someone who is always there for us. My Aggie was a "wise woman" - one whose advice I always treasured and whose love was unconditional and unending.

She taught me to love gardening and to know my garden as the place where I can think and contemplate and solve the problems of the world - well, my little piece of it anyway. Actually she also taught me that solving the big world's problems is a cooperative effort. If we each take care of our own and contribute a little something to the bigger whole, it will all work out.

Many was the time that I found her on hands and knees pulling the weeds that grew in the sandy soil around her roses, or clearing a little spot to add some small plant she had gathered from the side of a path. Many was the afternoon that we sat together and talked about the future - mostly mine - and how I would grow to be a woman myself. I never aspired to wise in those days - only to make it thru the next crisis. She helped me pull the weeds from my life to see my way more clearly and and dig holes for the small young plants in my character that would grow to healthy perennials of my adulthood. It was from her path that I plucked so many of those little plants to put into my life.

She also taught me that weeds have a place in the garden - and in our lives, too. Even weeds produce flowers and someday you may find they are among your favorites.

Aggie followed me from heart throb to heart break for years and then helped me be sure that I had really found "the one" and celebrated that love with me. She was there when I hit my teenage rebellion against my mother - late in my 20's - and helped me resolve it. She was always the voice of reason for me, and I still find her voice in my garden when I need to hear it the most.

Altho she has long been gone to "that big garden in the sky" she is as alive to me today as ever. Did I mention that she used to stand in the yard with one hand on her hip surveying the world, often peeking from under some ridiculous sun hat or another? Take a look at the photo on the left and you may see her - as I do daily in my garden now.

So, what can I take away. How about: be there for other young women to listen to their problems while they figure out the answers, cherish their dreams as they live them, and maybe one day turn into a wise woman myself.