The Dahlia's that have laid dormant since the spring have begun to bloom once more in my backyard. My landscaper is stunned that they survived the extreme heat of the Las Vegas summer. So am I.
And yet, there is a corner of my garden that has weathered the heat and drought. We had a week of no sprinklers and lost many plants but one corner of my yard still flourished. This plant, a gardenia, and some of my grandmother's dutch iris plants my aunt dug up for me from her yard in Idaho. I transplanted those irises the week Camille died. We were in Idaho at the farm the Sunday before the accident.
There is a great symbolic therapy in growing things. I have never been very good at gardening. I don't claim to be now. But somehow, this one corner of my garden refuses to be defeated against all odds. And I find joy in its blooms.
