第5章 Grandpas Garden爷爷的花园(1)
早安心语
like a sutier aer
像日出一样，越来越好。
early in the spring，about a month before my grandpa&039;s stroke，i began walking for an hour every afternoonsome days i would walk four blobsp;south to see grandma and grandpaat eighty-six，grandpa was still quite a gardener，so i always watched for his earliest blooms and eabsp;new wave of spring flowers
i was especially ied in flowers that year because i nning to ndscape my own yard and i was eager to get grandpa&039;s advicei thought i knew pretty mubsp;what i wanted-a yard full of bushes and pnts that would bloom from may till november
it was right after the first rush of purple violets in the wns and the sudden bze of forsythia that spring that grandpa had a strokeit left him without speebsp;and with no movement on his left sidethe whole family rallied to grandpawe all spent many hours by his sidesome days his eyes were eloquent-ughing at our reported mishaps，listening alertly，revealing painful awareness of his inability to care for himselfthere were days，too，when he slept most of the time，overe with the weight of his approag death
as the months passed，i watched the growih with grandpa&039;s eyeseabsp;time i was with him，i gave him a gardehe listened，gripping my hand with the sure strength and calm he had always hadbut he could not answer my questionsthe new flowers would bze，peak，fade，and die before i kheir names
grandpa&039;s illness held him through the spring and on，week by week，through summeri began spending hours at the lobsp;nursery，studying and choosing seeds and pntsit gave me special joy to buy pnts i had seen in grandpa&039;s garden and give them humble starts in my own gardeni discovered sweet william，whibsp;i had admired for years in grandpa&039;s garden without knowing its nameand i p in his honor
as i waited and watched in the garden and by grandpa&039;s side，some quiet truths emerged
i realized that grandpa loved flowers that were always bloom；he kept a full bed of roses in his gardenbut i notibsp;that grandpa left plenty of room for the brief highlightsnot every nook of his garden was stantly in bloomthere was always a treasured surprise tucked somewhere
i came to see，too，that grandpa&039;s garden mirrored his lifehe was a hard worker who uood the w of the harvestbut along with his hard a knew how to enjoy eabsp;season，eabsp;gewe often teased him about his life historyhe had written twraphs summarizing fifty years of work，and a full nine pages about every trip and vacation he&039;d ever taken
in july，grandpa worsenedo afternoon arrived when no one else was at his bedsidehe was gd to have me there，and reached out his hand to pull me close
i told grandpa what i had learhat few flowers st from april to novembersome of the most beautiful bloom for only a month at mostto really enjoy a garden，you have to pnt ers and drifts and rows of flowers that will bloom and grabsp;the garden，eabsp;in its own season