My dad was a native Cape Codder, a landscape gardener who loved to work with the soil, planting bulbs,  seeds and little plants and watching them grow.   At the age of 39, his wife, my mother, passed away – suddenly, overnight – with a brain tumor.  Dad was devastated and openly cried – a big huskie Finn.  I remember him walking across the hay field to come get me after the ambulance took my mother’s body away.  For months he cried, even turning to alcohol for relief.  But then he realized he had two young children to raise, a boy aged 14 and a girl, 12.

From that day forward, he never – openly – cried again.  He took charge.  He raised his children to reach for the stars but to remember their roots as well, and worked tirelessly to see that they had sufficient food, clothing and shelter.   One night I overheard a friend of his ask him when he was going to remarry.  Dad answered “never; my wife is gone for now but we will be together again someday.”  He watched his children grow and encouraged them to spread their wings, leaving him alone.

At the age of 53, he became ill with lung cancer and shortly thereafter joined his wife once again.

Now that I’m grown and realize all that he sacrificed for my brother and myself, I wanted to do something in his memory that would live on for many years, something connected to the earth, the soil that he loved, and that stands tall and strong through nature’s storms – thus this Southern Magnolia.

To my beloved father.

-Charleen