A New Start

“Ellen, look at it this way. Your lily may have died, but it left these seeds. We can plant them and start this lily all over again. It’s nature’s way of recycling! Come on, it will be beautiful,” Mom says.

I sigh and sit down in a pile of dirt. We had just moved across town to another house, because it was bigger and closer to Mom’s job. I didn’t mid moving; I was happy to have a bigger room and be closer to the ice-skating rink. It was our garden that I had a stink about.

At our old house we had a small plot of earth where we had planted all sorts of flowers, transforming about ten square feet of dirt into a colorful haven of flora, almost always swarming with bees and butterflies. When we moved we had tried to bring every plant, but not everything survived. My lily, for example.

My mother’s soft voice pulled me from my memory bank. “Please? Can we try? I’ve got trowels and watering cans ready. Besides, we have more space,” she adds. “We can plant all of the seeds.”

“OK,” I finally answer. “Let’s plant this garden.”

We toil for hours, the sun beating on our backs and the wind tossing at our hair. Once we are done, we stretch our backs and survey our work.

Our last garden may have been a bit cramped, as we did not have much room and we liked so much flora. This garden, though, has neat rows of well-spaced plants, some of them still seeds, others fully grown, crisscrossed in a grid of flowers, soil, and stone paths.

I smile. Mom was right. It is beautiful.