A five-by-ten patch of grass on the southeastern side of our back yard was dug up, soil amendments added, and every year in the late spring, he'd set tomato seedlings into the earth. Better Boys, generally speaking, because they were the perfect complement to BLTs and burgers.
Dad was a single generation removed from actual farming-stock, as my paternal grandfather grew up on several hundred acres of family farm in upstate New York. Hops were the primary yield of the family farm just outside of the little village of Chuckery Corners, but there we Williams grew everything, as most Americans once did.
Connecting with the soil was a thing for Dad. Not as important as music and performance, but still something that gave a sense of heritage. It was part of his story.
Every summer from middle school onward, the tomatoes at home were fresh picked. Rows were set out on our screened-in porch to sun-redden to ripeness, safe from the depredations of deer and squirrels and the occasional enterprising turtle.
As the years progressed, the tomatoes kept coming. Eventually, gardening got harder. Dad's knees started to go. Then his hip. Then, bit by bit, his heart. By the time he was in congestive heart failure, the garden was too much for him. My brother and I pitched in to help keep it going, and as the CHF progressed, we managed to keep a few tomatoes coming. Dad took pleasure knowing they were there, as my brother tended the plants during the summers he spent caring for my folks.
When Dad died early last fall after a hard season, the garden sat fallow. With spring coming on, Mom asked that I pull the fence I'd put in a few years back, and take up the pavers that once sat between rows of plants.
So this last week, I did. The fence, gone. The paving stones, dug from earth.
What had been a garden is now returned to grass.
The pavers, I took for my own gardens.
They took their place in my eight by eight raised beds, where they will provide stepping stones between tomatoes and garlic and greenbeans, between the garden that is present and the garden that has passed.
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