When I was young, it was my Grampa who encouraged my awe and love of nature. His country garden was abundant, nurtured by him speaking sotto voce to his plants, flowers, and fruit trees, or by serenading them in Italian on his mandolin. What magic did he whisper? It was a wintry October day when I neared understanding. Grampa and I sat on crates before his beloved fig tree. At our feet was a long rope, burlap, a pile of leaves. With one finger he motioned for my silence, and I watched as he tied a noose around his tree’s slender neck. Venere he called her, and with one cracked, calloused hand over the other, he started pulling that rope. Like a ballerina accepting accolades, Venere bowed before us. Throughout this Grampa murmured Italian to her—its use forbidden in our assimilated Italian-American home. Birdlets flitted in my stomach, my bottom grew cold. Eventually Venere was stretched horizontally, bound to a stake as her supplicating limbs reached for me. Grampa explained this was the only way to keep her from dying in our harsh, central New York winters, but it didn’t stop my tears. He whispered a blessing before covering her with leaves and burlap. Six months and several snow storms later, Grampa cleared Venere’s shroud, gently releasing her from her prison. Tiny celadon buds had popped along her branches. Venere lived!

My Grampa’s garden helped me understand and appreciate passion, patience, and persistence at a young age, and later fostered my own love for gardening, for the pleasure and serenity it gives as I care for it or sit amongst its beauty. Who is nurturing whom? I often wonder. Yet I only need to remember that moment when Venere returned to my grandfather and me, when hope was restored, when I believed the natural world held magic and mysteries. I still believe.