One of my very first gardening lessons in life came from my Dad, who taught me how to prepare a garden bed for a row of tomatoes, and then carefully plant and cover them with soil, all the way up to their necks so the entire stem would start developing roots and provide a better support system. Fittingly, our very first tomato flowers are in bloom on this Father’s Day – the first which we will be commemorating without Dad.
Dad had been on my mind recently, even before the barrage of Father’s Day e-mails and announcements. (Only one company was kind enough to include an opt-out of receiving Father’s Day promos – David Gandy’s Wellwear site, which sent out an e-mail asking if anyone would like to opt-out due to it being a sensitive holiday for some people. I decided to go that route – not because I’m particularly bothered by the world celebrating Father’s Day as it usually does, but because yes, sometimes it still stings to see any sort of father reference.)
I realized that with the coming of summer, all the remembrances and feelings of last summer were coming back to mind – the angle of the sun, the heat in the air, and the way the warmth brought out scents in the room that ended up being his last room. The atmosphere had started to feel powerfully familiar, and while I dreaded it, I didn’t feel completely lost or despondent like I thought I would. There’s a comfort to when I think of him now, like he’s still here, still guiding me in his way which was always more silent than not.
I will guide the tomatoes the way he taught me, and if my niece and nephews come around I’ll show them how too, hoping they will carry on his memory, and mine.
