Dear Garden,
I am happy to be here. I have been reading "The Secret Garden" since December. Even as a slow reader, I could have finished it by now but, I have been savoring it. And in that savoring, I have been rediscovering parts of me that I have left neglected and I hope to tend to them more often. I was the lowest I believe I have ever been this December, and then an article in the newspaper's garden section caught my eye. The author of the article writes that Frances Hodgson Burnett lost a son, Lionel, in 1890. She was still grieving when she leased Great Maytham Hall, Rolvenden, Kent, in 1898. There was a garden and there was a robin. This was to be the most important place in her life where she spent 8 of the next 10 years. She wrote inside a brick-walled plot where she planted 300 roses! The robin lived there and later she noted that she learned to speak robin. After being unable to buy the home when the owner decided to sell, she moved to New York in 1908 but, her garden in England kept calling to her heart. She began to write and my favorite book on earth was born. Frances Hodgson Burnett found healing in her gardens. In her final article, "In the Garden", which was published after her death, Burnett closed with these words, "As long as you have a garden you have a future, and as long as you have a future you are alive." The newspaper article has become my bookmark and my travel companion through this beautiful and magical book that is helping to push and draw me above my own sorrow. I love you all and I look forward to our future in this beautiful garden.
Love, I.L.
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3 comments:
Thank you Ivy-Lilac. Sorrow has hit us all in different ways that last ten years, and probably planted seeds for several writings within us. While I try so hard to empathize with the grief you have dealt with this past year, I know I can't. I think that often leaves me at a loss of what to say, but my thoughts, honestly dear ivy, have never been too far from you and your situation, and your heart, and the lowliness you have been feeling. Hopefully us coming together will help to foster a support group that I know I am in desperate need of. Thank you for this touching entry.
I see something of your pain because I've watched my mom, and my friend's family. I can't really quite get there but I certainly feel the cloud of loss hovering over. Em, it might not ever go away entirely, I don't know. But I hope if that's the case, your magic will help you only see the silver linings when you feel it shadowing your life or crippling your happiness and energy. Remember friends are the flowers in the garden of life and while we can't live in Alaska, this new blogger garden, it's so close.
Thank you both for your entries, I love this garden! The realities of life are what they are but, that doesn't me we cannot be Don Quixote's and fight to conquer the windmills of doubt, despair and heartache! What a beautiful, encouraging image of resilience! To be undaunted by the looming gray, to believe in flowers and sunshine when the valley before you holds none. This is.
xoxo
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