Her grandmother pulled on the gardening gloves. She had always enjoyed gardening, loved seeing the flowers she planted grow up to greet her in the mornings. She grabbed her small trowel and went out the back door.

            A bright spring morning. Some sort of bird was chirping a pretty sound. Her neighbors wouldn’t be up yet, of course. The town was just starting to rise around this time. Dew sprinkled all over the grass.

            She walked around the corner of the house. She took slow but determined steps. Her navy tennis shoes gently pressing against the wet grass. There was about ten feet of land between the south side of her house and her neighbor’s north wall. When he was still alive Mike had built a fence between them for her, and she had filled the walkway with flowers and stepping stones.

            She chose a corner of mean looking leaves and bent over to work. Her hands moved quick and strong at first, grabbing the weeds and grasses that had grown over her sacred flower bed.

            After a while her thoughts began to wander. She thought about what she wanted to get done that day, which of the kids would be over for lunch, what she should get from the store for next week. She thought about the new Father at church and how empty church had seemed last week.

            Her hands kept ripping. Dirt flew behind her bowed shoulders. She grabbed near the roots and pulled until the weed cried out its small suckling sound and gave way.

            As she grabbed the white crawling legs of the next weed, she thought about her son. She thought about the way, at the very end, his hand had scrambled towards hers in a desperate clinging motion, and then when he had given a soft cry and collapsed and he was ripped away.

            She knelt down, her eyes closed as in prayer. Her hands moved faster, flying through the dark garden to pluck out the shadows in the early morning. The grass sobbed dew.