Peace of Mind

As I have gotten older I have learned to enjoy and appreciate peace and quiet more. Probably because not it is a luxury to me. But, honestly, I have always enjoyed the quiet and the stillness of the day and night. I have always enjoyed the time of the day when everything was quiet and I always managed to just go and find a quiet spot just to sit sometimes and close my eyes for a minute and listen to the sound of nothing or the sounds of the birds or frogs or nature in general. I think that is why I loved my grandmother's backyard so much. It was a quiet spot, my quiet spot. It was not a big yard by any means but it was a place where I could just go and sit and close my eyes and listen to the birds or watch the squirrels climb up and down the trees. I would go outside quite often when we lived there. Just to get away from all of the hustle, bustle, and family drama that seemed to always be going on when we had our time there after she passed away. It never ceases to amaze me how the happiest of families can turn into greedy fighting monsters after someone dies and the entitlement of what they think they should have verses what they got creeps in their heads. My grandmother was not rich, she and my step grandfather didn't have a lot the only thing they had was a house and a car parked in the car port. But, seconds after they passed the fighting began. So, my peace away from all if it was outside in the garden. I still called it a garden even though the weeds had taken over for the most part and the yard was smaller because of the addition they put on the house in the 80's. But, my grandmother used to love to come out there too. She used to have a passion for growing things. I think she got that from her dad who was a farmer.

When we would go over her house if she was not inside cooking or resting she would be in the garden. She was always watering plants, planting plants and flowers and  weeding in between. Until she got dementia and couldn't do it anymore.Sometimes I would try to bring her fresh flowers but it was not the same.

I sat in that garden for hours sometimes watching my son play and or weeding the weeds the best I could. It was my peace and quiet away from everything. It was like a different world even though in reality I was only a few steps away from the chaos.

I miss her and think about her every day. I miss her voice, her smile, laughter, advice that I didn't ask for most of the time but most of the time she was right, I miss seeing her in the garden watering the plants and then realizing that we were standing behind her and turning around with that big smile. I guess in reality she was also my peace. 

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