Spending Time in Grandpa's Garden

We make the dusty trek from the house to the old mink sheds, just he and I. My small feet follow him as he pauses at his garden, taking me down each row to show me his latest production. He bends down with his arthritic knees and picks a few ripe tomatoes, a cucumber and then a of couple handfuls of beans. He puts them into a plastic sack for me to take home. I love eating things he's grown, they always tasted better than store bought stuff. We venture out of the garden and head towards the sheds. The mink rapidly bob their heads in and out of their cages, as if to see who's there. Grandpa helps me up onto his feed truck, already filled with a sloppy unattractive mixture. He climbs on and we ride from pen to pen dumping food into each trough. Once feeding chores are through we head back up to the house. We talk about things. When Grandpa tells you a story he seems to really get right down on your level, as if you were really his best friend and not just some little kid. He'd tell me I was his favorite (and although now I'm sure he had a lot of favorites) somehow he made me believe each time I was with him it really was true.

 

(These pictures were taken back in 1996. Here my Grandpa

shows his great-grandchildren his love for gardening.

left to right: Colton age 3, Tayler age 6 and Mackenzie 5).
 

 

In 2004 my grandpa passed away in his garden. He had been alone for a number of years after my grandma died and felt extremely lonely. His garden helped to keep him busy during the day but he always said that night time was the worst. A few years later he was reunited with a friend named Mern, who was also a widow. They eventually married and Grandpa moved to her home in Provo and began a  small garden there. He still loved working the soil and sharing what he had grown with others. To him it was a bit of paradise here on earth. How perfectly fitting that he should die there. It was a Saturday morning and he had been out digging and preparing the ground for planting. He sat down to rest for a while on a chair right in the middle of his garden. A neighbor noticed he hadn't moved in quite some time and alerted his wife Mern. I think it was a tender mercy that he could pass on in such a beautiful and peaceful setting. A place where he loved to be most often. A place where he now could rest.