An ode to my grandmother, Joy.

He thought that gardening was an acceptable pursuit, so she took that and ran with it. She always wanted to dance but he said it was too frivolous. She loved to sing but he was the one in the choir. She danced on the lawn and sung hymns while she weeded anyway. She grew vegetables, fruit and trees to feed him from. She started going to the Pottery Club to make pots to put her plants in but eventually he put a kiln in the garage so she'd stay at home. She lost her engagement ring in the vege patch once...it felt like the ground stole it from her for a while to give her a break after 60 years. I was there when she found it again inside the heart of a cabbage that had grown up around it. She didn't seem as excited about the find as he was. Every horizontal surface in their house ended up homing a posey in a vase or a little bowl of water with flowers floating in it. Every single flower, petal and leaf was precious to her, because they were hers. The garden was a sanctuary she had permission to create - a home for the birds that she wanted to fly away with. Nana's relationship with her garden revealed more of the unspoken than the spoken to me. His conditional love demanded it, but her unconditional love kept it growing.