My garden is a challenge. I’m not really a gardener, but I think I could be. Maybe. This quest started in 2015 when my doctor asked me, “What do you do for fun?”

I sat motionless, thinking, and hoping that I wouldn’t break into tears. “I don’t do anything for fun. I don’t have the time or energy,” I finally replied slowly.

“You have to find your passion,” he urged. Finding your purpose in life – something you can be passionate about – is a key component of his prescription for creating a healthy and youthful life.

I knew this was true, but I felt stuck and overwhelmed. At that time I was into the third year of being caregiver to my husband of 31 years.  He had suffered a stroke, followed by a heart attack the next month, and another stroke the third month. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing anything for myself.  I neglected relationships.  I neglected my health. I stopped doing anything that used to bring me joy. I just kept working – at the office and at home. And I fell into a deep depression.  It was time to change this trajectory, time to turn things around.

I gave it some thought. Maybe I’ll start playing music again, or writing. But when I considered the options, I heard in my spirit, “something physical.”  You need to do something physical.  Hmmmm.

My rose bushes!  Maybe I can learn how to garden, I thought. Maybe I can nurture and grow the roses in my back yard.  I’d never had any success with gardening. That was always my husband’s forté.  David had the green thumb.  I couldn’t keep plants alive.  The last time I took a plant to my office, David had assured me that it was a hearty plant, and I couldn’t kill it.  But I did.

At this time we had been in our home for one year and there were beautiful rose bushes in the back yard. When pruning season came around I started asking people how to prune them. What do I do?  I did what I had understood they said, the best I could.  Quite frankly, I think advice-givers really did not understand just how little I knew. So I did my pruning job, and never saw a rose again for months and months. My sense of failure at gardening was reinforced.

Still, I worked at it a bit. A friend helped me learn a bit. Then life went on. My life circumstances changed and I forgot all about gardening. Until now. I now live in a home with a beautiful flower garden, and some rose bushes. I’m still not good at it. My skills are laughable and I’m not sure about what’s a weed I should pull out and what’s a stem that will bud and flower. Yet, I am learning. It’s fun and rewarding when it goes well. And it’s physical exercise which I could use a lot more of. And, it brings me joy. I wouldn’t call it my purpose, but it does give me some passion . . . at least when a new bloom unfolds and smiles at me. And that’s a good thing.