Silent Approval

I spent the past days in Klagenfurt doing heavy-duty, heavy-lifting garden work. Mum is not the gardening kind and had been waiting for me as she defers to my - perceived at least - expertise in gardening matters. As I was digging, depotting, repotting and -plotting I could almost hear the more or less patient instructions and running commentary by my late father in my head. I could sense his disapproval at certain moves and approval for others. I know that he would have praised me after all the labour I did and funnily enough, Mum did, too. "It's so strange", she told me, when she joined me in the garden, "I catch myself wanting to turn to Dad, saying 'Don't you think she did a great job?' to him, then I realise that he isn't here." Before Easter church service, we lit a candle and left some flowers at his grave and while unlike my mother I don't really feel the urge to visit the cemetery or feel that he really is there, it is certain situations that were his area of expertise (and he was THE undisputed garden king, after all) where I feel his presence most and really feel I am continuing some legacy, even if it is just some mundane gardening task.