高中英语教学：The Healing Garden.docx

The Healing Garden —By ?Cindy Hudson The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.——Alfred Austin ? When my husband Randy died in late fall, deciding what to do with his garden was way down on the list of necessary tasks. During the first few months, I cried with our daughters, ordered death certificates, planned a memorial, cried with my family, celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving, panicked over not having bought Christmas presents, cried with my friends, and diligently chipped away at stacks of paperwork. As the calendar turned to a new year, the often rainy days and long nights compounded my grief. I found myself exhausted at the end of February, my mental and physical reserves depleted. Then the daffodils bloomed. Years before, Randy had planted dozens of these lemon-yellow bursts of color in strategic places around our yard. To him, they served as beacons of hope, a promise that light and warmth would soon replace cold and dark. Looking at those daffodils, I thought about how Randy had considered our garden a living work of art, strategically choosing plants so we’d see new blooms every month. Then I noticed all the weeds. I needed to get to work. At first, I felt overwhelmed. Randy’s illness had lasted a couple of years, a time when he didn’t have energy for yardwork the way he had before. The neglect showed. Invasive species had taken root and spread. Shrubbery had gotten leggy. Weeds were sprouting everywhere. My daughters suggested I hire a service to clean everything up. But I wanted to do the work myself. In some way, I neededto do the work myself. Randy had always found that working in the garden was a pleasure, an antidote to his structured corporate life. Many days he came home from work, changed into old clothes, and headed out the door to mow or prune or just “piddle around,” as I called it. No matter how cold or wet it was, the fresh air and physical activit