Read by Matilda Longbottom

In ratty flannel shirts and stained jeans, my mother would patrol the perimeter of her little garden, beaming with undivided pride and happiness. She would bend down, plucking weeds and gushing over the latest sprout. That little garden was her baby, her grandest treasure.

Mother was never one for ease. She would run back and forth between the garden and the pump, using a banged-up watering can instead of the working hose. My father bought endless numbers of hoses and sprinklers, all for her convenience. But she would have him march right back to the store with the unopened boxes or donate them to local charities. What about purchasing new watering cans, ones from this century? Ceramic ones with fun designs, plastic ones with adjustable spouts? Forget about that; they would follow the hoses and sprinklers, back to the storefronts.

Mother used her old metal one, the one with a big dent and dirt caked onto the sides. The can that my great-grandma gave to her when she was a little girl. The can that made it from Arkansas to Idaho, to Maine, and finally, to the southern tip of Washington. The can that had watered millions of plants, from corn grown in fields, to potatoes planted in old tires, to potted flowers on windowsills, and golden tomatoes that glisten in the morning dew.

My mother was a sucker for four things: that watering can, having a garden, long-sleeved flannel shirts, and tomatoes. She was an absolute sucker for tomatoes. All tomatoes. From big red ones to tiny little cherry tomatoes, she would eat them. Raw, cooked, mashed, alone, together, she would eat, eat, eat. She would eat until her body told her to stop. (And even then, she would still try.) Her favorites were the ones she grew in her own garden.

I would often find her outside, sitting in the middle of the garden, a tomato (or seven) in her hand, eyes grinning as the sun rose or set. Tomato juice would drip down her chin, and she would either lick it or wipe it on a flannel sleeve. Sometimes I would join her, most times I didn’t. Whenever I did, she would wordlessly hand me a tomato, and I would lean against her shoulder, watching that gaseous blob travel across the sky.

Flannel shirts, a white tank top (usually stained brown from dirt), and ripped jeans were the only things you would ever see her wearing. And they weren’t bought-at-the-store ripped jeans; they were worn-to-the-ground ripped jeans. Downy flannel, soft from age, will forever remind me of my mother, because she would rather die than wear anything else. Mother was a very unique person.

I used to make fun of her. I used to mock her fashion choices, being the little brat I was. Sarah’s mother wore pencil skirts, and Jamie’s mother wore a different outfit anytime you saw her, so why couldn’t my mother dress up nice and fancy? My mother would laugh or scoff, handling my unnecessary tantrums with a grain of salt. After a particularly mean insult, she went out and bought a sun hat. “I’m a gardener, might as well look the part!” I would like to say I never made fun of her again, but I was a teenager. Happily ever afters don’t occur when algebra and acne exist.

Every once in a while, I would walk with my mother through her little garden, watching her face light up while she told me the secret to growing strong tomatoes, the amount of water for a perfect green onion, and how to cut back the raspberry bush without killing it. Mother would have me nibble on peapods and carrots, watching me for a taste reaction. I always told her it was the best thing I ever tasted, and she would throw her hands to the sky and praise the Lord, thankful for such a bountiful harvest.

I used to feel like I never fit in with my mother’s life. I hated dirt and anything similar to dirt. I hated picking slugs off the lettuce leaves, watching their slimy trail crawl all over the plant that would be tonight’s salad. I hated that beat-down watering can and how long it made the watering take. I hated sun hats and long-sleeved flannel. I hated waking up early to see the sunrise or watching the sunset. (We didn’t have the best view for that.)

And worst of all? I hated tomatoes. I hated that juiciness, the icky coloring, and weird shape. I hated how you could and would and should eat the seeds, and how messy it was. I hated the taste, texture, and everything. Mother spent years planting different kinds of tomatoes, trying to find one we both liked. And year after year, we were desolate. Black Krim, Peach, Celebrity, we tried them all. It was a wasted effort, as we never could find one that suited my taste buds. However, we did find that my mother didn’t like all tomatoes. (Rebellion tomatoes weren’t very delicious to any of us—my father included.)

I often felt like my mother loved the garden more than she loved me. She would gush to her friends and relatives about how well her gardening was going, how many vegetables she was able to show at the county fair, and how she was going to make her own strain of tomatoes one year. She would jibber and jabber about how great that piece of plot was. Mother would spend so much time out in the backyard, tenderly touching the leaves and humming as she frolicked along the sides. She spent so much time with it and not enough with me, that I left.

I left Washington and moved to upstate New York. I worked as a secretary for some garbage company and wasted 30 years of my life doing work I hated. I was so desperate to not turn out like Mother, with her beat-down watering can and her cut-off jeans. I wanted to be successful, amazing, clean-cut, and fabulous. I ate out, never made my own food, and never ate the healthy stuff my mother used to force down my throat. I avoided all the tomatoes. I was distant from family and Earth. I was a bubble in a snow globe, but I had never realized it.

I probably wouldn’t have realized it if I hadn’t gotten a call from my mother. Father had passed away in his sleep, died of old age. It was like someone popped my bubble, dropped my snow globe, and shattered everything. My father died happy, but if I continued this way, would I die happy? No, no, I wouldn’t.

So, I packed some socks and a few shirts and moved in with my mother, who still lived in our Washington homestead. We stayed together in that little house, up until the moment she passed, which was three months after my father’s death. She was so desperate to see her soulmate that she died from heartbreak.

During those three wonderful months, I adapted to Mother’s lifestyle. I wore jeans and sun hats, and got down in the dirt planting little watermelons (that never did grow) and squash. (They didn’t grow either.) We laughed and giggled, watching the sunrises and sunsets like we’d done it for years. I used her rustic can and watered the peas (Mother had planted those, so they’d grown up just fine.) and tomatoes.

In her final will, she left me the house (and everything in it), the watering can, and the garden. She also left me a note. In it, she told me she was proud of me, of the woman I’d grown to be and of all I could be.

I learned, unfortunately too late, that my mother didn’t love the garden more than me. She loved the history of her garden, the way she had grown one with her mother, the way her mother had grown one with her mother, and so on and so forth. By goading me into planting, she felt like she was passing on the knowledge of our ancestry, our history, our generational growth. By gardening, she was remembering those we lost and envisioning those we would gain. By talking garden, she was talking family. She loved her garden because of family, because of memories.

I had been jealous over a hunk of tilled dirt for nothing.

So, now I sit here. A proud Washingtonian on Washington land. With Arkansas roots and New York attempts playing in the dirt beside me. I breathe in deeply, smelling the earth and memories and my mother. I put on her favorite flannel and nibble on a tomato, the echo of my mother’s warmth resting on my shoulders. Taste buds change, just like family does. Just like dreams and aspirations do. ❖

About the Author: Gratia Serpento is an Oregonian poet, journalist, and writer who, ironically, hates tomatoes. Her works have been published in Poor Yorick, not a type Magazine, The Scriblerus, Ishvara Wellness, among others. You can usually find her picking tomatoes out of salads, being urged to eat more vegetables, or wandering through her family’s garden with a green bean hanging out of her mouth and beet juice dripping down her chin.