Grandma Meade lives on

05.20.2008 Comments Related

As you may or may not know, my Grandma Meade passed away April 16th, the same day my son was born. Recently my Mom came in town and brought a few sentimental items from my Grandma's house that she thought I'd like. One of those items came with a very interesting surprise.

She brought a cross that was hanging in her bedroom, a statue of Mary that I thought was sorta funny because the paint on her face was falling off and a stone planter that was sitting on her porch (for the record, my Sister snagged the planter for me, thanks Wendy! (Oh, and she snagged a part of a Lilac Tree for me too!)).

My mother in law, Minji, brought over a big tray of Violets to plant so I thought, perfect, I'll plant the flowers in the planter that used to belong to my Grandma. It still had the dirt along with a few weeds which I started to pull out one by one. As I tossed the weeds aside I noticed one in particular had a large root ball in proportion to the size of the weed which was about 5 inches high. Upon closer inspection I found that this "weed" was growing from a Black Walnut that some sly squirrel tried to hide in my Grandma's planter. This was no weed at all but a Black Walnut tree (in case you didn't put the pieces together yet).

I'm honored to be the recipient of this stone planter that sat on my Grandma's porch and even more so, happy to have this Black Walnut tree to remember her by. It's very likely, being a month ago, that this is closer to Jack's age (and my Grandma's passing) than any other tree that I've planted to celebrate his birth.