Yesterday was a good one.  It was spent in the morning with my husband and grandson visiting a mega sporting good store to see the "big deer, bears, wolf, fish, elephant, zebra, lion" and all the other animals that my little guy loves so much.  These are all stuffed, a bit morbid maybe, but at almost two years old, my grandson does not even know that yet.

We took our time, saw what he wanted to see, ate lunch (I ate the guts of a tuna fish sandwich, no bread) and then had the car ride home again. 

The back of my mind and sometimes the front, I just kept thinking about my dad.  Every cute thing that my grandson said or did (and he does hundreds each day) reminded me of how much my dad would have loved him.  It was thoughts that made me smile, not thinking of "what if" but rather thinking how lucky I was to have my dad for 44 years.

Back home again, Morton chatted away to Sarah who was holding our little Maggie, sleeping curled up like a little egg on her chest, Alexander napped and I headed to the garden.

All the bamboo we had gotten earlier needed to be stuck in the ground and tied up to make the grid to hold the tomato plants up even in heavy winds and rain.  Carrying all fifty-three pieces from the porch to the garden I felt a work out coming on.  This wasn't going to be a five minute job and that suited me just fine.

While pushing the poles in the ground, tying the twine to form a spiderweb design that would require no tying of the actual plants, I would think of my dad every time I would catch a whiff of the lovely smell that tomato plants produce.  I could just hear him saying, "There is no perfume they make that smells that good!"  He of course, would have been right.

After a while Morton came and said goodbye, kissing me while I stood barefoot in the soil, over the little fence I had put up to keep Alexander from running wild in the garden.  He was off to work and my plan of us riding the bicycles together would have to wait until another day.

Wringing wet with sweat I pushed open the front door and asked for a glass of water.  The sun had came out and I was in desperate need of a drink.  When I got it, like some sort of odd time machine, my thoughts went back to a specific time in the garden the last summer my dad was alive.

Dad would spend at least an hour each day in his garden.  Straw hat shielding his bald head, jeans on no matter how hot it was and his white sleeveless t-shirt.  He would go out in the heat of the day and on this particular day that my mind just recalled, it was wicked hot as I looked to the garden from the shade of the porch.

Going to my parents sink I let the well water run, then filled up the biggest glass in the cupboard, a quart mason jar.  No ice, just water.  I carried out past their pond that dad had stocked with fish he would catch and release, remembering past fishing trips to Canada where we would eat all that we caught. 

Dad didn't see me until I was right behind him.  He was busy using the hoe to remove the weeds that were ever trying to take root in his vegetable patch.  He was singing a song as he worked, a hymn that he loved.  I thought for just a second that I didn't want to give him a fright, but he turned around just as I was thinking it, with a big smile on his face.  Of course he had seen me walking up, he never really missed a trick.

After saying thank you to me for fetching the water, dad drank as if he had just crossed a desert.  He finished the quart, handed it back to me with a muddy hand print on it and just laughed when I told him to not stay in the sun too long.  He said the garden wouldn't take care of itself and when he was done, he would get a shower and we would go in to see mommy, what he always called my mother.

Blinking a little tear out of my eye I could pretend it was the sweat rolling down my face that caused it.  No one in my daughters living room was worried about it anyway as I handed my glass back to her.  She turned it so she wouldn't have to touch my muddy hand print and asked if I wanted any more.  That was enough for now, I had to get back to the garden.  After all, it doesn't take care of itself.

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