Granddaddy is Really Sick and the Garden is Full of Weeds

Funny how you can tell how things are going in your life by the condition of the things that you love.
My beloved 94 year old Granddad is very ill. He is not bed ridden mind you, as a matter of fact he won't go to bed. He has congestive heart failure and the pressure that laying down puts on his chest is so great, he won't sleep in his bed, but instead, in his kitchen chair.

I find this so very upsetting, and even after a hospital bed has been provided for him, just laying back the littlest bit puts too much pressure on his chest.

I feel absolutely helpless to help him, because even though the smallest tasks are becoming impossible for him, I'm still a child in his eyes, and can only make him do so much.

I garden because of him. He taught me how at a very young age, and my first driving experience was on his old McCormick Farmall Tractor. It is a passion of his, and he has passed it onto me. Now when I go to the garden, I cry. I half heartedly pull the weeds, and I still have to transplant peppers, but I find myself avoiding the garden because my thoughts immediately go to him, and as of right now he will never have another garden, and he has said so.

Oh how these threads that sew the fabric of our lives connect. I know that Granddaddy is in God's hands and all will be in His time, just as I know that I will work my garden until I can no longer do so, and the passion for cultivating ones food has been passed to my children.

No, it's not fun. It's hard dirty work, but when you put up 20 jars of jelly from the strawberries you have grown, or cut up cucumbers in order to make 5 gallons of pickles, or when your making soup and you can go out into your own yard and pull up enough potatoes, onions, and carrots to fill your pot....you have done something real.

It is a basic and wonderfully rich experience, and a gift from my Granddad that I am so grateful to for giving me.

Thank you Granddaddy, I'll get to those weeds.