My Uncle's Garden

A beautiful quiet place

My uncle had a beautiful garden. As I write this he’s still alive, by the time I send this he will be dead. We have already had our final conversation. Pre-mourning is such an odd thing. That’s what this is, pre-mourning that will turn into proper mourning.

My uncle’s garden felt like a sacred space in the sacrilegious hustle and bustle of New York City, an oasis of quiet in a desert of noise. He had a fountain with koi fish in it, I got to feed them and always enjoyed watching them eat. On my penultimate visit to him there, I saw one that was noticeably smaller. It was an infant koi fish, or whatever the correct term is.

I use the word garden, but it was more a museum. There was a child buddha on an elephant. A stone lantern with a depression in it. A replica terracotta soldier. Others I’m failing to recall in sufficient detail to describe. It was beautiful. There were things to admire right there in his backyard, not far away in a museum that creates envy of the ancient world where even plates could be worth admiring. He had them in the present.

The inside of his home was not as pleasant. It was crowded with things, well more than a museum exhibit’s worth. He was a hoarder, and he saved a lot of things that seemed more burdensome than anything else, unpleasant to look at, but he also had things you’d want to keep. He was both a role model and cautionary tale.

Writing this brings back a foul smell, the one it took on due to the state of his health. I don’t feel like saying what it was, but I know what it was and that makes me want it out. Why is that fucking smell such a clear memory instead of something worth remembering!

There was one sculpture in his house in particular that I got to hear the story of multiple times. It’s carved from the wood of a specific tree, it looks like people linked together, forming a sort of spire. There was something special about the tree or carving process.

It was from a trip overseas to an African country, as a teacher on a school trip. He saw the sculpture, tried to buy it yet it was too much, so he left. Then the school trip came back by the area so he saw it again, and the price had lowered so he could get it. But it was so large he had to have it specially shipped, it had to be carried on a cart through the airport, getting it into the taxi in New York City required a lot of effort. What’s going to happen to it now?

My uncle had many stories. Some of them may have not been true, even excluding the ones that were clearly him having fun telling tales. Phone calls with him were always long. He’d often repeat stories, but they were still fun to hear. He made sure I knew something important, the answer to any question: It Depends.

Books were important to my uncle. If someone left books out by the street he always had to inspect and take them. He liked sending people books too, and he didn’t settle for mere paperbacks, they were nice looking special editions. Giving books was his love language.

I haven’t read them all, he had a way of rambling about something and deciding that meant I was interested in it myself. But it was because of him I read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Winnie the Pooh, the latter of which he considered an important fantasy book. I both understand and yet feel I don’t fully grasp the ending of The House on Pooh Corner, the sign of a thoughtful ending.

Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.

"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I—if I'm not quite——" he stopped and tried again—"Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"

"Understand what?"

"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"

"Where?" said Pooh.

"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

I shared some of my own writing with my uncle. He’d always come back with strange versions of it in his head that felt like another story, which I think was part of the fun for him. My relatives think it gave him something to rotate in his head since he didn’t have papers to grade as a teacher after retiring.

I always say it’d be nice to have other people build off my own work, and that’s what he did. He didn’t settle for just saying he liked it, that wasn’t his style, he met my story with one of his own. I wanted to share more of my writing with him.

My uncle didn’t eat, he dined. The local restaurants all knew him. We always ate well with him, and for hours when we dined at restaurants. My family doesn’t eat to live, we live to eat, and he exemplified that. Will the waiters he knew as a regular mourn him too? Do they know what happened?

My final goodbye to him was this: that I admired how beautiful his garden was and wanted to create a beautiful space like he had. My fear is that I’ll spend the rest of my life chasing my childhood home, but wherever I live, I want to make it beautiful. That’s what I learned from him, that what’s I want to pass down from him.

Is there any other wisdom of his I have to share? It Depends.