"A Gardener Like That One, No One Can Replace"

My grandma was a gardener – that is how I think of her and how I will remember her. Gardeners are gritty people, at home in the dirt. They are often at war with the elements; battling pests and weather and nature to coax, or wrest, bounty from the earth.

Not that she didn't dress up; Nana was elegant when the occasion called, with swirly skirts, high, high-heels, special jewelry and fabulous lipstick. She was classy and so gorgeous.

But I remember her best in a jacket and sturdy trousers, padding carefully in slippers through the morning dew to her garden to harvest beans, tomatoes or cucumbers. She used to grow cucumbers for me, and would send pictures so that I could see how my cucumber, carefully arranged on a re-purposed Styrofoam tray, was growing. Her garden was lush and bountiful, and huge – with beans strung so tall she would disappear in the rows.

Not that that was hard. Nana wasn't very tall, but she was mighty in spite of her stature – a pocket-sized dictator ruling her kingdom with care, attention and a diminutive iron fist. 

She bothered to care because gardeners nurture things, and she did: plants, cats and people who needed rescuing. She saved many strays that became beloved pets, or provided food and a warm place to sleep for the travelers who couldn't settle down. She gave generously to causes that moved her – the humane society, ASPCA, Nature Conservancy, and even Obama’s election campaign. She volunteered with meals-on-wheels, though half of the people she delivered meals to were younger than herself.

Yet, gardening successfully requires pragmatism and even ruthlessness; pinching off the sucker stems, culling weak seedlings, and clearing away spent plants. My grandma was a gardener - she could be tough, and unyielding. Her towering will was out of proportion to her physical size. If she wanted something a certain way, she was sure to get it and clashing with her was an exercise in futility.

Nana was fearless in the face of adversity, and undaunted by difficulty. There was no challenge she wouldn't tackle – including driving solo across the country, from Chicago to San Diego, at 84 years old. A truck ran her off the road at one point. So she hung on and piloted her car off the shoulder, through the ditch next to the highway, then back across the embankment and onto the road again without even stopping the car. After a warm bath with a scorpion (seriously, there was a scorpion paddling around in the tub with her) and a good night’s rest, she got back on the interstate to keep driving the next day.

My grandma was lively and fierce, determined and indomitable, and, oh man did she know how to work. She was witty, with a dry sense of humor and an appreciation for dirty jokes. She was classy, but plain speaking and blunt. She was as down-to-earth as her Midwest roots, but amazingly adaptable to changing times, perspectives and ideas. In the decade she was born, radio with spoken broadcasts was a new invention, along with pop-up toasters and penicillin. As new technology came along she adapted – using cell phones, computers and email. She was organized and detailed, and liked her routine, but could be adventurous and silly too – laughing like a maniac while whipping downhill on an inner-tube sled, even when we accidentally dumped her off and ran her over. She was still laughing when we dug her out of the snow.

My grandma was dynamic – difficult and loving, stubborn and caring, obstinate and fun. She had a long and interesting history, and despite challenging origins, she built a contented and satisfying life for herself.

More than anything, Nana was independent, ferociously independent, to the very end. She lived her life as she wanted – and no matter where she went, she planted and tended and made her place in the world green and lovely.

Gardeners do not tread lightly; they leave indelible marks on the world. Tilling and gouging and turning the earth, they create little corners of beauty and memory, trailing blooms in their wake. My grandma's mark is not just in the ground she transformed or the plants she nurtured, but the crop of lives originating from this one, small woman – two daughters, three granddaughters, five great grandchildren. Each of them with lives built, families created, ground broken.

We will grieve her absence. We will miss her humor, three kisses goodbye and a hearty pat on the back. But her garden will continue to grow and spread for generations to come as we each sow her legacy of seeds – nurturing life, giving to others, working hard for what we have or want, planning and saving and winnowing, and always, always growing.

My grandma was a gardener; look at how we've bloomed.

One great grandson + three great granddaughters with The Great Nana
There is an 86-year difference between the oldest and youngest people in this photo 

Bette Louise Hammer Stogentin
Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and gardener
10.13.1924 to 7.19.2014

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.