Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. — Marcel Proust
Let me tell you about Heather. She entered my life in 2006. Her arrival was unexpected actually, like all events for which we never plan, but which alter us, in some cases forever. Heather came my way because I needed support for the many demands of my work position. I really didn’t appreciate her then the way I would like to say I do now. Even now, I have to be reminded of how truly special she is, because sometimes I get so busy I really forget. To be blunt, I think the angels conspired when they sent Heather my way as a reminder that the best things in life are sometimes the ones right under our nose.
Heather was put in my life as a teacher on many fronts — for one, Heather faces pain every day, but you would never know it. I know it, because she told me. It was a disclosure that came more as a side than anything else. The pain is the kind that would send many, myself included, into a hole we might never climb out. But not Heather. Heather is that person who sees the glass not only half full but full. She is kind, cheerful, a can-do person in the face of others who say, oh, my God, I don’t know if I can. Heather can — she does it everyday.
I walk in my garden and see daily testimony to the magic of life that keeps going in spite of everything. Heather is that kind of magic. You would never know her challenge, because she is not stopped by it. Yes, she has her days like we all do, but she keeps plugging away — for her wonderful and beautiful daughters, for her sweet and funny husband John, for her friends, for me (although God knows I don’t deserve it!). She is truly a gardener of the soul.
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