The Garden of Weathered Delights

My father's backyard is a junk garden. It's a combination of grass, open patches of dirt, raspberry canes, opium poppies -- yes, those big red ones (needless to say, he doesn't do anything he shouldn't with them), strawberry plants, and assorted junky paraphernalia. Over the years, he has tidied it up some, so that it was fit for his grandchildren to play in, without fear of finding them impaled on some old, rusty bicycle part.

But there's still a certain odd, crazed beauty to that yard in the summer, with its random old bits, splintering, weathered shelving and that blazing assault of poppy blooms. Then, after the strawberries and the poppies, the raspberries come in, more than he could ever eat alone, and when I'm visiting I pick them and make ruby jam for his dark winter mornings.

The house will probably be sold within the next few years. It's not in the safest part of town and he wants something that requires less maintenance. He'll still need a place to fulfill his urge to tinker -- for that, he built a two-door garage in the back. So eventually, he'll probably find a smaller, more modern space, with a garage or a basement full of nothing more than potential. When he does move on, I suspect most of the junk won't move with him.

Part of me hopes that will be the case: less to deal with in the more distant future when he's no longer with us. Part of me will miss that topsy-turvy back garden with its rusty, worn-out totems and berry bounty. It's a reflection of my dad's mix of love and disinterest in material things and his constantly roving mind, picking things up, then leaving them to weather on the slivery shelves when he finds the next interesting piece of junk he "might need someday...you never know". Eventually I'll have to say goodbye first to the junk garden, then to my father, but hopefully I can squeeze in a few more visits in the meantime.