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Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

Was it a dream? Was it me in the raspberry patch, cutting off old canes and uprooting chickweed as bluebirds warbled excitedly about the sunny skies? Was is it actually true, those robin songs in the morning hour of March 9, or were my ears playing tricks on me? Was it a mirage, that sun, to draw me outdoors, to drink from the fountain of fresh air? Was it me, with Atlas garden gloves, in the big, round flowerbed, to clean away winter's deadness to reveal emerging shoots of life, green with promise? That overgrown row of yarrow in my garden is gone, but was it me that exerted energy with garden tools to remove them? That contented person organizing in a little greenhouse and garden shed, oblivious of all but the sun and warm breezes and songs of birds, was it me?

Of the three shoppers for seeds, surely I wasn't the oldest. Surely I wasn't the gardener planning for her 38th gardening year. Wasn't it only yesterday that I was disturbed about the rows I made with my hoe because they weren't exactly straight? If that were me, why am I still making gardening mistakes? Why am I still learning about gardening techniques like row covers over wire hoops?

Through the hazy memories I see that young gardener on the phone with her mom. Soil was still on her hands that day in her quest for straight garden rows. Was it the telephone wire or the blood line that pulsed through the generations of gardening and years of mistakes and lessons? Were we hopelessly "dyed in the wool" gardeners, giving no heed to dates, only the feel of soil and weather calling us to do the most satisfactory thing on earth?

In the shadowy years gone by, there was a definite cut-off date and in two year's time I was the oldest in the generation of gardeners. I knew my mother would never again stroll through my garden as we compared experiences, but in my grievous loss, I was comforted by the presence of my granddaughter Kaitlyn. She was only two years old, but she understood perfectly what I was doing when I tore apart the bound roots of the pansy plants we were planting that glorious spring day.

Can it be me still, motherless, with all my children grown and gone, a lone gardener? A dream it was, of course, that my daughter and her daughter, Bella, age 2, came last week to help plant those first seeds of the season, fearlessly, confidently. And surely I would have more sense, knowing that digging out ornamental grass roots in March would merit screaming muscles. But of course, in dreams we do strange things.

In real life, I fed calves and milked cows and washed dishes and cleaned my floor. I snipped yarn and made knots before I bound the edges of comforters. I was pleased to attend the geography day where my grandchildren were part of lessons learned. Just as pleasant was the time we spent at the home of our friend with quartet songs. The chat with my cousin on the phone was real, as we journey on, sandwiched in generations of love and care. The sandwich for me on Saturday, was edible. I sat on the patio to eat it and shared my crusts with Chloe. The sun was bright but the stray fingers of wind that reached us were cold.

I know for real that we went to church in Piney Creek on Sunday. I heard the sermons, one of which was delivered by a minister from Penn Valley, who, with his co-travelers was invited for dinner at my uncle's home. I heard my sister-in-law, Esther Stauffer, tell us that her granddaughter Melissa Stauffer was published to be married to Darrel Oberholtzer, son Warren and Marian Oberholtzer of New Enterprise. Along Henrietta Road at the home of her parents, Eugene and Elsie Stauffer, Melissa plans for an April 22 wedding, Lord willing. More of the expanding Stauffer family that afternoon was apparent when we walked down Stauffer Lane to meet and hold the newest little son. Fierce March winds assailed us and battered the whole evening but I was not really with it. My alarm clock had awakened me an hour earlier and I was too sleepy to notice.

When my alarm clock rooted me from deep slumbers again on March 15, the temps were in the teens with vicious north winds, there were no robin songs outside or streaming sun on my breakfast table. It must have been a dream.

 

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