I took the M-dog for a walk this afternoon, over by the low-cost apartment buildings where Navy non-commissioned officers were once housed. There's one area I frequently drive by where I have been noticing an old guy out digging and puttering in what looks like a pretty well-established garden plot.
I miss the Camden Avenue garden more than I ever imagined, even as I recall the way I used to feel burdened and occasionally overwhelmed by the maintenance tasks that went with the vast four tenths of an acre area around the old house in Hayward. A day like today would have been filled with as much pruning and cleanup as I could muster a year ago. Most likely I would have felt resentment about the time and effort required that day to keep up with the gardening demands.
But today, standing at the edge of the old man's big garden, I grieved again for my trees and flowers. Especially my roses. I saw the ancient gardener up on his second floor balcony, watching me, and gave him a wave and a smile. "It's beautiful", I said, and asked "How long have you been doing this?" He smiled back, and in halting English replied "Two years. You come back three months, roses be very nice, many roses. " I could see that he had recently put in maybe fifteen new bare-root roses, and had pruned back a bunch of older established ones. "I plant all these trees." he said proudly, pointing to a row below where he stood. "Cherries." They were about twelve feet tall, and their skillful pruning was revealed by the dormant leafless state. I recognized the shiny distinctive bark, and thought of the huge and productive cherry tree I had planted eight years before. I remembered standing under it and eating my fill of perfectly ripe dark cherries off the tree, and feeding some to the chickens.
As we chatted more, I learned that he was an Afgani - some sort of refugee I suppose. I guessed that he had been there for a few years in the apartment, and that he had immediately started his big garden, with all sorts of vegetables and fruits - and roses. It probably gave him great comfort - being so far away from the home and garden that he gave up for whatever reason.
January is the month I too used to prune back my rose bushes to the short stalks that prepared them for another long season of producing lush foliage and achingly beautiful heavenly scented blossoms. Standing there looking at the old man's plot, I thought about how the city and developers will probably demolish his simple apartment building in a year or two, replacing it with expensive new housing and shopping. I looked back and up at him as the dog and as I walked away past a row of thorny bare canes, and thought about how he would miss his roses and his garden again when this happened.
© Text 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf
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