Read by Matilda Longbottom

Each Spring, I watched as my grandmother’s flower garden erupted into a living rainbow of colors. For me, each blooming season represented the magic that emanated from my Nana’s hands. She could grow anything: vegetables, fruit, and especially flowers. Her front yard was filled with every blossoming creation imaginable. Petunias, marigolds, pansies, and roses of various hues thrived under Nana’s loving care. Friends and neighbors often stopped by to admire her garden and to bring a seed or cutting for her to nurture into fruition. Unfortunately, not all of Nana’s flowers had such honest beginnings. Nana was a floral gangster, and I was her 8-year-old, unwilling accomplice.

As Nana strolled along the sidewalks of downtown Petersburg, no one would ever suspect that the sweet, old brown woman in a giant blue sun hat was quietly committing theft. Petersburg, Virginia, was a poor city, but if wealth were measured in flowers, you would never have known it. The streets were lined with ornate planters overflowing with beautiful greenery. The temptation was too much for even a good Christian woman to resist. So, she didn’t.

The theft started off innocently enough, with admiration. “Ooh Lawd, look at these here,” Nana would swoon as she passed a planter. “Now I never have seen a plant like this; look at those flowers.” A look was never quite enough, though. She always had to touch them. “Let me just see what these stems feel like.” Then, quick as lightning, the “touch” turned into a “pinch.” “Well, do Jesus, it broke off. I’ll just take this on home with me and see if I can’t get it to grow.” This was how our downtown visits went. A trip to pay the water bill would pay off with a purse full of “pinchings.” Harmless enough, but at age 8, with a very specific view of right and wrong, I was horrified. My Nana was a thief! She was stealing flowers from… well, I didn’t know who she was stealing them from at the time, but I knew it was wrong.

My world was now upside down. I loved gardening time with Nana. I loved downtown time with Nana. I loved the flowers that Nana grew. I loved Nana. I didn’t want her to go to jail. If she did, who would take care of her garden? I fretted about this dilemma but found no answer. Life continued, Nana kept pilfering plants, and I continued to help her root them in her lovely yard. I found the solution where many other children of my generation and I gained knowledge: the all-knowing TV.

One night, while watching our favorite weekly show, all became clear. Yes, it was those good old Duke boys that showed me the error of my ways. The Dukes of Hazzard took things that didn’t belong to them, but they were the good guys-just like my Nana! She was making a way the only way she knew how, and that was just a little bit more than the law would allow. I imagined my Nana riding right alongside Bo and Luke Duke in the General Lee. They would take a huge leap over some object to evade those crooked cops and then pause so Nana could liberate a few plants from their public prison. Way to go, Nana!

Life in Nana’s flower garden taught me that right and wrong were not always black and white. I learned that sometimes good people needed to do what was “wrong” in order to make the world “right.” Now, I don’t know if my grandmother transferring public flowers into her private garden really helped to balance the scales of justice, but for an 8-year-old girl, as far as I was concerned, my Nana was a Duke.

Nana isn’t with us any longer. Sadly, even though I spent years gardening with her, I never developed her magical way with plants. Each year, I try to resurrect a little of what she was by bringing forth a bounty of homegrown vegetables and flowers. Each year, I fail. I think of Nana often as I survey these failures and wonder with shame how I gleaned none of her masterful ways. But my thoughts are most powerfully on Nana each time I pass a public planter filled with lovely blooms. Once in a while, in her honor, I get a little too close to the flowers. I reach out my hand just to touch them, and with a sleight of hand passed down from an old brown woman with a big blue sun hat, I pinch. Yeehaw, Nana. ❖