As a young girl, I often went to visit my grandparents in West Hartford, Connecticut. While both of my parents were at work, my mother's mom would walk my down to my other grandparents home to pass the time. My grandma, Susana, kept a blossoming garden filled with fresh vegetables and fruits: tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, lemons, peppers, even watermelon some years. My father's parents had immigrated to the States from their home in Portugal where gardening was the only way which they knew to provide fresh food easily to their family. This was something I could never understand because as far as I knew there were grocery stores and markets always open, less than a mile from my home.
Intrigued, I would watch the tiny sprouts break through the freshly turned soil and transform into delicious, ripe food for our Sunday family dinners. It was difficult for me to comprehend how such a small, seemingly insignificant, seed could grow such decadent things from the ground. Just as I cherished these moments of tending to the garden, my grandparents cherished watching their only granddaughter grow before their eyes. They would look at me, so amazed at the knowledge I seemed to retain in my tiny little head, and all the words that were a never-ending stream from my chatterbox-mouth. Just as I would watch these tiny seeds sprout fruits, they would notice the new skills I learned each day.
Each of my milestones as a child, to them, were similar to a new fruit growing off of one of their newly planted trees. When I was just four years old, my grandfather passed away, and within a year, so did my grandmother. I was very young at the time, so I still was not completely sure what "death" was, or the emotions that come with it. What I did know, was that nobody would ever grow better snacks than my VoVo and VaVa. Though I was never able to form a mature and solid relationship with my grandparents, I feel as if they have been tending to me from up in heaven, just as they would to their garden.
With each prayer I prayed, each dream I dreamed, and every wish I wished, they have seemed to answer me and help me along this confusing journey called "adolescence." I would like to think that when they look down on me, they find that all of my unique qualities are as special and diverse as the produce once grown in their garden. I am hopeful that after all my years of admiring the growth which took place in their garden, I have also been able to provide my grandparents with their own sort of garden to watch grow, and prosper.