Memories of Mum and gardening

Memories of Mum and gardening

All her life, mum loved gardening. Together with dad, they grew vegetables and fruits at the back section of the house, and lovely flowers and orchids in the front garden.

Just before Mum turned sixty, she moved to her new house in the Gold Coast of Australia. I visited her that summer from New Zealand with my two year old daughter, D.  Mum told me that D could only say one word," Share! Share!" Whenever D wanted to borrow mum's gardening tool, share was the word she used.

Everyday we woke up early before it got too hot. It was arduous work digging into the what was once a beautiful lawn. Mum was tiny, and she depended on my bull strength to dig the lawn up to make way for her veg garden.

We found a choko vine, and mum nurtured and nourished it until it grew into a gigantic vine that grew and grew until it migrated to the neighbors' gardens. Dad built a trellis near the fence so the choko vine could grow supported by the diagonally structured wooden trellis.

Mum loved the choko plants. The fruits look like two palms holding together like praying, or according to her Asian interpretation, it is like a Asian way of greeting.

Mum said with a wink," No, my chokos are sending greetings to them."


Alas, after all the hard work, mum died in an accident the next year. When I was digging her garden with her, little did I know that was the last time we would be gardening together.

Mum died tragically in Australia. She was just a little younger than what I am now. When I am alone in the garden, I feel that she is there with me.

The pix shows an old abandoned choko in my garden. I do not eat chokos. They make me choke when I think of Mum.